Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
VGP – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had a summit meeting with President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg on Friday as part of his three-day tour to the African country.
The summit meeting between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 21, 2025. Photo: VGP
President Ramaphosa expressed his pleasure to meet Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, recalling his deep impressions on Viet Nam during his State visit to Viet Nam in October this year.
Ramaphosa warmly welcomed Pham to attend the G20 Summit, emphasizing that the latter's participation in this year's event reflects Viet Nam's solidarity and active support for South Africa.
South Africa always considers Viet Nam a close traditional friend and partner of top importance in Asia, affirmed Ramaphosa.
For his side, Pham congratulated on South Africa's robust development and rising position and role on the international arena. He conveyed the greetings from General Secretary To Lam, State President Luong Cuong, and Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Thanh Man to President Ramaphosa and other senior South African leaders.
As mutually agreed earlier, Prime Minister Pham and Presdient Ramaphosa officially declared the upgrade of the Viet Nam-South Africa relations to a Strategic Partnership, marking a new milestone in the history of the bilateral ties.
The two leaders agreed to task relevant ministries and agencies of the two countries to soon develop an action program to implement the newly established cooperation framework in order to create new breakthroughs in bilateral cooperation and transform the bilteral ties into a symbol of South-South cooperation.
Both sides affirmed their resolve to continue fostering economic, trade and investment cooperation, considering this a key pillar of bilateral ties. The two sides also agreed to promptly set up a working group to promote market access for the two counrtries' exports in a bid to raise the two-way trade to US$4-5 billion over the next two or three years.
Pham suggested the two countries upgrade the inter-governmental committee mechanism to foreign ministerial level from the current deputy foreign ministerial level. He also called on South Africa to push for early talks on a free trade agreement between Viet Nam and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) established by Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.
The Prime Minister also urged South Africa to create favorable conditions for businesses of the two countries to expand cooperation across various fields like infrastructure development, green economy, digital economy, telecommunication, agricultural processing, EV manufacturing, and Halal food.
Pham called for promoting cooperation in defense, science and technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, tourism, education and training, culture and people-to-people exchanges.
The two leaders agreed to continue signing new cooperation documents to create a legal framework for advancing bilateral cooperation, such as double taxation avoidance agreement, agreement on visa exemption for holders of ordinary passports, and agreement on cooperation in crime combat.
On multilateral cooperation, the pair agreed to continue close coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums, especially the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, and G77.
The same day, Prime Minister Pham met with Vice President of South Africa Paul Mashatile in Johannesburg./.
