Defense cooperation, the most important pillar of cooperation between the two countries, received a fillip with Modi announcing a new $500 million line of credit for Vietnam to facilitate deeper defense cooperation.
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Narendra Modi is paying an official visit to Vietnam from Friday to Saturday. Overall, Prime Minister Modi’s short visit to Hanoi will definitely yield dividends for both India and Vietnam in the coming days. Bilateral efforts which began as an effort to tap into Vietnam’s economy have now expanded into defence and strategy.
India’s bilateral trade with Vietnam now stands at $7.8 billion.
“It will provide a new direction, momentum and substance to our bilateral cooperation. It has strategic partnerships only with two other countries, Russian Federation and China”, he said.
A contract on building high-speed patrol boats was signed by India’s M/s Larsen & Toubro and the ietnam Border Guard utilizing a $100 million line of credit.
India has already been providing assistance to Vietnam’s navy through training to operate the new Russian-built submarines.
All concerned are aware that the principal “regional challenge” is Beijing’s aggressive posture in relation to the South China Sea.
The Indian side expressed its commitment to capacity building and training to enable Vietnam’s participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, it said.
Prime Minister and I agreed to take several decisions today to move on the pledge of our partnership.
China is involved in a raging dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei over ownership of territory in the SCS, a busy waterway through which India’s 50 per cent trade passes.
The offer comes after a surge of nearly 700 per cent in Vietnam’s defence procurements as of last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think-tank, which tracks the arms trade over five-year periods.
China has also objected in the past to India’s Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) undertaking exploration at the invitation of Vietnam in the SCS, which is believed to be rich in undersea deposits of oil and gas.
On the other hand, India is concerned about China’s attempts to widen its influence in the Indian Ocean.
“12 for togetherness! India & Vietnam sign a dozen agreements for further strengthening the Strategic Partnership”, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted. But hopes are that some progress will be made soon, with the director generals of their disarmament departments holding talks to bridge differences.
“In a very hard-hitting intervention, he (Modi) said terrorists in South Asia or anywhere for that matter do not own banks or weapons factories”, Swarup quoted the Indian leader as saying.
For boosting bilateral commercial ties, he said that new trade and business opportunities would be tapped to achieve the trade target of $15 billion by 2020.
May, 59, is UK’s second woman Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher, also known as Iron Lady, with whom May is often compared.
“Both sides expressed satisfaction at the conclusion of the Programme of Cooperation in UN Peacekeeping Matters”, the statement said. Also, under a China-Pakistan boundary agreement signed in March 1963, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq.km of Indian territory, an area north of the Siachen glacier, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to China.
Following a luncheon hosted in his honour by Phuc, Modi visited the Quan Su Pagoda, also known as the Ambassadors’ Pagoda, here.
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“Other leaders attending the summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou include Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Japan’s Shinzo Abe, Britain’s Theresa May, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Francois Hollande and India’s Narendra Modi”.
