On the afternoon of November 21 (local time), in the city of Johannesburg, Politburo member and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
At the meeting, implementing the commitment during the state visit to Vietnam by the South African President in October 2025, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa officially announced the upgrading of Vietnam - South Africa relations to a Strategic Partnership, a historic milestone in deepening bilateral relations, substantially and effectively, on the basis of trust.
To effectively implement the Strategic Partnership framework, the two leaders agreed to assign the authorities of the two countries to promptly develop an Action Plan to implement the newly established relationship framework, specifying the content of the Joint Statement on the establishment of a Strategic Partnership, in order to create a breakthrough and make the Vietnam - South African relationship a model of cooperation between the Southern countries.
The two sides also affirmed their commitment to continue to promote economic, trade and investment cooperation, considering this a focus of cooperation between the two countries; soon negotiate an agreement and immediately establish a working group to promote market opening for goods and products of each side, striving to soon increase bilateral trade turnover to 4-5 billion USD in the next 2 to 3 years.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh proposed that the two sides upgrade the intergovernmental committee mechanism from Deputy Minister to Minister; suggested that South Africa promote the early official launch of FTA negotiations with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), creating the most favorable conditions for businesses of the two countries to expand cooperation and investment in various fields, especially in infrastructure, green economy, digital economy, telecommunications, production, processing of agricultural products, energy, electric vehicle production, development of Halal industry; promote defense and security cooperation; promote cooperation in new fields such as science and technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, creating conditions for Vietnamese businesses to participate in 5G projects, digital transformation in South Africa; promote cooperation, education, training, labor, culture and sports and people-to-people exchanges.
The two leaders also agreed to continue negotiating and soon signing important cooperation documents to create a legal and institutional framework for bilateral relations such as agreements on avoiding double taxation, visa exemption for ordinary passport holders, and cooperation in crime prevention.
President Cyril Ramaphosa highly appreciated and supported the Prime Minister's proposals, especially emphasizing support for Vietnam's practical, effective approach and spirit of urgency; and was pleased that in the short time after the President's visit to Vietnam, the two sides have actively negotiated and agreed on the Joint Statement on upgrading relations to a Strategic Partnership as well as the Agricultural Cooperation Agreement, a field that has been discussed for many years.
The President pledged to direct South African authorities to closely coordinate with Vietnamese partners to soon realize the contents agreed upon by the two sides' senior leaders.
At the end of the meeting, the two leaders agreed to issue a Joint Statement to upgrade relations to a Strategic Partnership and witness the signing of a memorandum of understanding on agricultural cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment of Vietnam and the Ministry of Agriculture of South Africa.
