Workers at a shrimp processing factory in Vietnam (Photo: VNA)

South Africa remains a promising market for Vietnam’s fishery products and serves as an important gateway for them to enter the regional market, an official has said.

Pham Thanh Hai, First Secretary at the Vietnam Trade Office in South Africa, told Vietnam News Agency reporters on the sidelines of a recent consultation on fishery exports to the African market organised by the Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).

Nearly three decades after the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Vietnam-South Africa cooperation has flourished with achievements in major fields of politics, diplomacy, national defence, security and trade, among others.

Of note, South Africa is currently Vietnam’s largest trade partner in Africa as the average annual growth rate of two-way trade surpassed 1.2 billion USD in the 2019-2021.

Statistics from the MoIT indicated that the African nation mainly imported shrimp worth 3.17 million USD and frozen fish of 1.03 million USD from Vietnam last year. Bilateral trade remained stable despite negative impacts of COVID-19, showing that Vietnamese items and fishery products in particular have gained a foothold at the market.

In addition, South Africa is viewed as a locomotive in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), therefore its retail network serves both the domestic market and neighbouring countries. Once becoming suppliers for South Africa's supermarkets, Vietnamese firms may gain major opportunities to access a huge market comprising more than 364 million people and seeing an annual GDP growth rate worth 710 billion USD./.