South Africa wants to sell more of its mining and defence products to Vietnam. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated this as he wrapped up his working visit‚ which saw him engaging in “good extensive and expansive talks” with his counterpart from the southeast Asian nation‚ on Wednesday.“We are already doing a lot of trade. The trade has grown from about half a billion dollars to one and a half billion dollars and we want to expand that‚” said Ramaphosa. “At the moment it is more in the favour of Vietnam. Vietnam is exporting a lot more goods to South Africa from the manufacturing base. We are exporting a little less from an agricultural base.”To “balance the trade between our two countries”‚ Ramaphosa said: “We want to expand that to include mining products which we are very good at‚ to include defence products which we also have in good abundance.”Ramaphosa said SA and Vietnam would also “be cooperating on a biodiversity level even more particularly after the CITES conference to conserve wildlife‚ particularly the Rhino”.The 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg last month .“We were very pleased with the discussions that we had and appreciated very much the level of concern that the Vietnamese government also has with regards to protecting and conserving the rhino”‚ said Ramaphosa."And as you know South Africa has more rhino than any other country in the world and the rhino is facing a great deal of challenges because it is being poached.“The Vietnamese government has made a commitment that it is going to spread more information in Vietnam about the importance of conserving the rhino and this for us it is absolutely important and in many ways it also helps to deepen and broaden our relationship with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” ..