Vietnam should focus on investing in agro-processing and manufacturing electric cars and batteries for electric vehicles, Deputy President of South Africa Paul Mashatile told his Vietnamese counterpart Vo Thi Anh Xuan during their talks in Hanoi on Thursday.

Mashatile, who is on an official visit to Vietnam through Friday, also suggested that Vietnam widen its doors to South African products, particularly farm produce, in order to foster bilateral trade between Vietnam and South Africa.

Mashatile made his first visit to Vietnam at the invitation of Vietnamese State Vice-President Xuan to celebrate the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two nations.

His trip comes just three months after Xuan paid an official visit to South Africa.

During their talks, Xuan affirmed that Vietnam attaches much significance to its friendship with South Africa, which stemmed from the strong bond between Vietnam's Communist Party and the African National Congress, a social-democratic political party in South Africa, in the 1960s.

South Africa is currently Vietnam’s first and only partner for cooperation and development in Africa.

The top South African official underlined that his trip to Vietnam was meant to bolster the two nations’ partnership in the economic, trade, education-training, biodiversity protection, and environment realms.

The two leaders reached a consensus on deeper bilateral cooperation and all-level delegation exchanges to accelerate the organization of the sixth meeting of the Vietnam-South Africa Inter-Governmental Partnership Forum and another meeting of the Joint Trade Committee next year.

Thanking Vietnam for supporting South Africa to become a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in July, Mashatile shared expectations that Vietnam will help South Africa deepen its partnership with the bloc.

He also affirmed that South Africa is willing to assist Vietnam in strengthening cooperation with the Southern African Customs Union.

The two top officials highly valued achievements made over the past decades thanks to the two nations’ strong cooperation.

Vietnam and South Africa are determined to raise two-way trade to US$2 billion in the years to come. 

Both leaders encouraged investors from the two countries to expand their operations and investment in each other’s market, especially in the electric car, pharmaceutical production, mining, and wildlife conservation sectors.

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