Hanoi - South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa today, Tuesday 4 October 2016, concluded his successful visit to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ahead of the working visit to the Republic of Singapore from 05-07 October 2016.
 
The working visit to Singapore is the second leg of Deputy President Ramaphosa’s two-nation working visit aimed at consolidating existing bilateral, political, economic and trade relations between South Africa and the two nations, Vietnam and Singapore.
 
Deputy President Ramaphosa is expected to unlock future areas of trade and investment and among others to attract Singaporean State Owned Enterprises to invest in South Africa through the Public Private Partnership in line with South Africa’s Nine-Point Plan.
 
In this regard, Singapore’s State-Owned Enterprises have contributed significantly, through the sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, to its economic development programme.
 
Singapore is a world model for its economic success which is partly attributable to its social cohesion. In this context Singapore is expected to share with the Deputy President and his delegation, lessons learnt on its path to economic success.
 
South Africa and Singapore have been strengthening their bilateral economic relations with trade between the two countries having grown significantly.  Singapore is now South Africa’s second largest trading partner in the ASEAN region.
 
By 2014 bilateral trade amounted to R28.9 billion as compared to R23.5 billion recorded in 2015. Exports in 2015 amounted to R6.8 billion while imports totalled R16.6 billion.
 
Ten South African companies with a total capital expenditure of R1.67 billion between 2003 and 2015 have invested in Singapore. These include Naspers, Computamaps, Investec among others.
 
During this period a total of 987 jobs were created in the industrial sector, hotels and tourism, financial services and ICT.  According to FDI market database four FDI projects from Singapore were recorded up to March 2016 with a capital expenditure amounting to R246.06 million creating 223 jobs.
 
Deputy President Ramaphosa is also expected to secure the commitment of Singapore to assist South Africa with skills development and to increase the number of training courses for South African students offered under the Singapore Co-operation Programme. Deputy President Ramaphosa chairs the Human Resources Development Council of South Africa (HRDCSA) charged with the responsibility of developing South Africa’s human resource strategy.
 
During his working visit to Singapore, Deputy President Ramaphosa is expected to:
 
· pay a courtesy call on the President of Singapore Tony Tan Keng Yam and
· meet Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong over a working lunch
· address the Lee Kuan School of Public Policy
· engage in a round table discussion with Investors
· meet with Government Investment Corporation
· tour the Housing Development Board (HDB)’s “My Nice Home Gallery”
 
 The Deputy President will also visit the Ports of Singapore Authority.
 

          
                       2011     2012      2013      2014    2015

Imports           2,76      7,3          19         19,7     16.6

Exports           8,24    10,9          9,5         9,2       6.8

Total trade       11       17,6         28,5       28,9     23,5

Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa +2782-990-4853
 
The Presidency