CRI听力:South Africa VP Hopes to Learn China's Experience of Industrialization

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa says the driving force behind frequent exchanges between the leaders of China and South Africa is economic growth. He recalled that when China started the industrialization process in the late 1970s, Chinese leaders like Deng Xiaoping had traveled to Japan and Europe to seek investment and technological exchanges. That's also what he hopes to get from China.

"We want as much investment as we possibly can get from businesses that originate from China, but we also want innovation. We want them to come and invest and as they invest, they bring new ways of doing things. We give them the market, and we give them profits."

As an example, Deputy President Ramaphosa cites the expansion in South Africa by Hisense Co Ltd, a Chinese multinational white goods and electronics manufacturer.

In addition to cooperation in telecommunications and infrastructure, the Deputy President says South Africa is also keen to get China's cooperation in the energy sector, especially nuclear energy.

"Because you have developed nuclear energy, and you've built up nuclear energy power station, and you advance in a very admirable way. So we'll be wanting to draw quite a lot of experience and a lot of participation from your side."

He adds this would be a big project and South Africa is looking at a number of countries including China to expand his country's energy mix.

Ramaphosa says his visit in Beijing has been a learning experience, and he is deeply impressed with the ways that China's state-owned enterprises are run. He says the SOEs have contributed enormously to the growth of China's economy, which is also what he'd like to see in the context of South Africa's mixed economy.

"Those that are owned by the public sector are areas that we want to focus on, to see how we can get them to play a more meaningful role in the development of our own economy, create more employment, reduce poverty and inequality as well."

China has been South Africa's single largest trading partner for many years, and South Africa is China's largest trading partner in Africa. The deputy president believes with the financial cooperation in the context of the BRICS New Development Bank and the two countries' co-hosting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation later this year in South Africa, bilateral relations will be further cemented.

After Beijing, Deputy President Ramaphosa will visit the coastal city of Qingdao and will then conclude his trip on Friday in South China's Shenzhen city.

For CRI, this is Wu You.