To give a fillip to India’s bilateral ties with Vietnam and in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Look East policy, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will leave for a three-day visit to Vietnam on August 24.
The Minister will meet her counterpart and senior leadership; she has also convened a meeting of Indian heads of Missions in South East Asian and East Asian countries and will inaugurate the 3rd Round Table of India ASEAN think tanks.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said India and Vietnam that share “robust” economic ties are looking at enhancing bilateral trade in the areas of textile, pharmaceuticals and agriculture products.
“Both the countries also have fairly robust economic ties and the bilateral trade stands at USD 8 billion, of which Indian exports to the country is about USD 5.4 billion,” MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
India has also for techno-commercial reasons decided to extend the exploration of the oil blocks allotted to it in the South China Sea for a further period of one year. The exploration was initially scheduled for two years, starting 2012, but Indian oil companies have called for extending the work for another one year.
On whether defence cooperation will be on the agenda, the spokesperson said: “…In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid and defence cooperation is one of those.”
The visit, expected to be the first in a series of “high level” exchanges is the first from the Indian side since the NDA government took over. General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong came visiting in November 2013.
