Pretoria (VNA) – Vietnamese Ambassador to SouthAfrica Hoang Van Loi has paid a visit to the city of Cape Town, Western Cape, seekingto boost relations in politics, diplomacy, economy, cultural and social affairsbetween the two countries.

Loi was in Cape Town from February 8 – 12 to attend a numberof events held by South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation(DIRCO) following President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering the Speech ofNational Address 2022.

He joined other ambassadors of ASEAN member states in SouthAfrica to pay a courtesy call to Supra Mahumapelo, National AssemblyChairperson of Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation.

During the meeting, Ambassador Loi briefed his host onVietnam’s socio-economic development and key foreign policies as well asrelations between the two countries and two legislatures.

Alongside his ASEAN counterparts, he proposed South Africato continue backing ASEAN’s stance in regional and global issues and supportingeach other at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), particularly as the 144th Assembly of the IPU will be held in Indonesia in late March.

The diplomat took the occasion to announce the VietnameseNational Assembly’s approval of the establishment of the Vietnam-South Africa friendshipparliamentarians’ group in an effort to promote cooperation between the twonational assemblies and the two countries at large. He suggested that South African legislature found a similar organisation to foster connection and exchanges.

Mahumapelo vowed to closely coordinate with ambassadors ofASEAN member states to further foster solidarity and friendship between the twosides through parliament-to-parliament, government-to-government andpeople-to-people exchanges.

In his meeting with Deputy Minister of DIRCO CandithMashego-Dlamini, Ambassador Loiput forward several recommendations to further expand bilateral trade andeconomic cooperation at the time when both sides are taking strong measures to revivethe pandemic-stricken economy.

Deputy Minister Candith Mashego-Dlamini, for her part,proposed during the fifth meeting of the Vietnam – South Africa PartnershipForum, the two countries should focus on discussing specific measures andinitiatives to deepen the bilateral ties, and expand and diversify thebilateral relations in agriculture, trade of agricultural and mining products,fishery, automobile supporting industries, tourism, education and others.

Loi also met with newly-appointed CEO of the Cape TownChamber of Commerce John Lawson and leaders of the University of Cape Town(UCT) and several local companies doing business with Vietnam.

Statistics from both Vietnam and South Africa show that thetwo-way trade reached nearly 1.3 billion USD in 2021 despite COVID-19 impacts.Vietnam’s exports to South Africa totalled 847 million USD last year, up 24.3percent against 2020, while imports were valued at 426.5 million USD, down 40 percentyear-on-year./.