Pretoria (VNA) – Trade promotionactivities will create more opportunities for Vietnamese products to penetrateSouth Africa – its largest trade partner in Africa, an official from theVietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has said.

Nguyen Thao Hien, deputy head of the MoIT’sEuropean-American Market Department, made the remarks at a workshop that soughtto put Vietnamese products on supermarket shelves in South Africa held inJohannesburg on May 14.

She led a Vietnamese trade promotiondelegation, including leading food producers and processors, to South Africafrom May 10-14, to introduce Vietnamese products to local consumers.

Although trade revenue between Vietnam andSouth Africa has increased over the years and exceeded 1 billion USD in 2018,the two countries have potential to further bilateral trade, especially in foodproduction and processing and seafood, Hien said.

At the workshop, Vice President of theJohannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jacki Luthuli lauded the MoIT andVietnam’s Commercial Affairs Office in South Africa for their efforts in tradepromotion.

Trade promotion activities will be importantpremises to strengthen trade ties, she said.

This is the first time Vietnam has sent aspecialised trade promotion delegation to the African market in an effort to encourageVietnamese firms to directly export their products abroad.

While in South Africa, the delegation coordinatedwith the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Cape Town to hold another tradepromotion workshop in the locality.

They also had a working session withrepresentatives of Advance Cash & Carry – the largest distributor in SouthAfrica, and displayed Vietnamese products in local supermarkets.

According to Dao Manh Duc, head of theVietnamese Commercial Affairs Office in South Africa, South Africa remainedVietnam’s largest trade partner in Africa in 2018 with export-import turnoverexceeding 1 billion USD, up 11.7 percent year-on-year and making up 16 percentof total trade value between Vietnam and African nations.

To enhance trade between Vietnam and SouthAfrica, many Vietnamese trade promotion delegations are scheduled to visit thecountry in the near future.

A delegation led by a representative of theMoIT will attend the 26th South African International TradeExhibition in Johannesburg in June, and another delegation of businesses willcome to the country to study its support industry in the leather and footwearsector the same month.

Statistics released by the MoIT’sAsian-African Market Department show that total export-import turnover betweenVietnam and 53 out of 55 African countries was estimated at 6.6 billion USD in2018, of which export value hit some 3 billion USD, up 10 percent year-on-year.

Egypt was Vietnam’s second largest tradepartner in Africa, after South Africa, with trade revenue reaching 439 millionUSD, a rise of 36.6 percent from the previous year.-VNA