Your Excellency the Deputy Prime Minster of Vietnam Mr Hoang Trung Hai
Your excellencies Ambassadors who are here
Your honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers
 
It is a real pleasure and joy to have received the Vice Prime Minister of Vietnam and his honourable delegation on an official visit to South Africa.
 
It is a real joy and pleasure for us as South Africa to receive them because the relationship between Vietnam and South Africa has its roots many decades sago.
 
We first started relating to Vietnam 60 years ago when the two peoples met in Indonesia at the Bandung conference. This is the year when we celebrate 60 years of the Bandung conference when many leaders in the world got together to agree to work together to bring an end to colonialism in the world and unleash the forces of freedom in their various countries.
 
That it is when the delegation that was led by some of our leaders met with leaders of Vietnam in Bandung and that started a relationship between the two countries and the two peoples.
 
Over time our relationship has been strengthen on a number of occasions.
 
We recall very fondly how former President of the African National Congress Mr Oliver Regional Tambo visited Vietnam in 1978 and that time Vietnam placed their support, to supporting the struggle of the people of South Africa to rid ourselves of apartheid oppression. That was the key moment in the history of the African National Congress.
 
Throughout the years of our struggle, we as South Africans were greatly inspired by leaders such as Ho Chi Minh who is an icon of the Vietnamese people and the inspiration that we drew from Ho Chi Minh was such that it propelled our people to strengthen their resolve to defeat the apartheid system.
 
South Africa attaches a great deal of importance to the relationship between Vietnam and South Africa. We see Vietnam as a staunch friend and an ally. Over the 22 years since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, the relationship between South Africa and Vietnam has grown and it has solidified in a number of multifaceted relationships with growing cooperation in a number of fields and a number of areas.
 
During our meeting today at bilateral level we reviewed the status of our trade relations. We also reviewed investment cooperation between our two countries.
 
We also touched on a number of other areas that have to do with Science and Technology, that have to do with Wild life protection. We also discussed a number of other regional and international issues.
 
On bilateral trade, we welcome the continuing increase in bilateral trade, which has now reached R13.4 billion in 2014 having come up from R3.7 billion in 2011 and agreed that substantial potential still exist to broaden and to deepen trade between the two countries.
 
We also noted the considerable trade deficit that South Africa has and agreed that we should focus on increasing our economic interaction with Vietnam and that it should be more balanced as we find a number of areas where South Africa can increase its export goods to Vietnam and also Vietnam will start looking closer at South Africa to increase its own investment activities in South Africa.
 
The relationship between South Africa and Vietnam can be characterized as an active, participative, and mutually beneficial relationship between two countries that relate at a number of levels.
 
We heard how Vietnam is actively involved in pursuing our mutual interest when it comes to wild life protection, particularly the protection of our Rhino which we have stopped being extinct.
 
Vietnam through the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in 2012 and renewed in 2013, has joined us actively in raising the levels of awareness in Vietnam, amongst Vietnamese about the importance of saving and securing the Rhino; has also embarked on a number of measures where they are helping to protect the Rhino by making sure that they increase their own watching mechanism; they are also arresting people who are getting involved in illicit trade of the Rhino horn; and we also heard how their activities have led to people getting arrested and Rhino horns being broad back to South Africa.
 
We were also very pleased to hear of the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between our Minister of Science and Technology and Vietnam. The areas of cooperation are broadening and we have a relationship that, is alive with great progress and great potential and this is what the two countries want to pursue and make sure that we do all these in the interest of ensuring that our people prosper and we grow both economies.
 
As I conclude we also were particularly pleased on both sides that our relationship is also going to revolve around areas such as defence, such as agriculture – where we are going to be selling possibly exporting agricultural products such as fruits and beef. We were also very pleased to hear that they can teach as quite a lot of things as we can teach them.
 
Infrastructure is another area where we are going to be hoping to cooperate. There is a lot that Vietnam and South Africa will be cooperating on as we are cooperating in a number of areas.
 
As we welcome Vietnam here, we welcome Vietnam as a friend; and Vice Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai we welcome you.
 
We are very pleased that you are going to see President Zuma in a few minutes to pay a courtesy call. Please feel warmly welcome here in South Africa.
 
South Africa is your home and we are very pleased that you are here.
 
Thank you

Please click here to download the Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, and his Question and Answer session