Prime Minister NarendraModiwill embark on a two-nation tour to Vietnam and Chinastarting today.
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Mr. Modi is likely to hold bilateral meetings with President Xi Jinping of China and President Barack Obama during the summit.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to India, which concluded Wednesday, has helped boost the strategic cooperation between the two countries, Indian experts said.
The Prime Minister will leave for China on Saturday evening from Vietnam to attend the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou.
The meeting is set to take place in this picturesque eastern city on September 4 and 5 at a time when a series of terror attacks in many European countries claimed by ISIS have threatened the global peace and security. MEA secretary Preeti Saran said India would get additional blocks from Vietnam.
Secretary Kerry praised Prime Minister Modi’s leadership on combatting climate change and raised entry into force of the Paris Agreement; conclusion of the hydroflourocarbon amendment to the Montreal Protocol, and the International Solar Alliance initiative.
Vietnamese public servants and students will also be granted 200 scholarships to support their studies and research in India, Harish added.
From terrorism, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to Dollars 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Balochistan, the bilateral ties took considerable beating. The ASEAN summit will be followed by the 11th East Asia Summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to pitch for expanding trade ties with the powerful grouping besides enhancing overall cooperation at the 14th India-ASEAN summit on September 8.
“Trade between India and Asean stood at $65.04 billion in 2015-2016and comprises 10.12 percent of India’s total trade with the world”, it stated.
“The South China Sea issue has nothing to do with this summit”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying had said in a media briefing recently when asked whether the issue would figure at the meeting.
As the world’s top leaders are set to discuss the state of the global economy at this weekend’s G-20 summit here, geopolitics, bilateral issues and growing threat of terrorism have cast a shadow over the gathering while host China is keen on avoiding any references to the simmering South China Sea dispute.
According to Mehta, India’s priorities in this summit will be cross-border mobility particularly in services, reduction in remittance costs from overseas Indians, poverty eradication, moderation in consumption and more sustainable lifestyle, and improved technology access. The Prime Ministerial delegation will then move to Hangzhou in China which is the venue of the 2016 G 20 summit.
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Mumbai-based security expert Sameer Patil highlighted that at the New Delhi meeting the two parties sought to advise Pakistan on terror issues while an earlier meeting in Washington was focused on China’s military stance in the region.
