Vietnam, India hold 10th political consultation, 7th strategic dialogue

Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Dinh Quy (R) and Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs Preeti Saran

Under the co-chair of Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Dang Dinh Quy and Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs Preeti Saran, the event reviewed the bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

They highlighted the fruitful development of the Vietnam-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in many fields, especially politics, defence-security, and economy-trade.

The two sides agreed to continue regularly maintaining all-level delegation exchanges via the channels of the Party, Government, State and legislature, as well as promoting people-to-people exchange.

The visits by Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to India in early 2018 helped enhance political trust and open a new chapter in bilateral cooperation, they said.

Deputy FM Quy applauded India for successfully organising the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit.

The two sides pledged to effectively implement the Action Plan for the period of 2017-2020, thus promoting the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in all areas of cooperation.

They agreed to foster collaboration in huge potential domains such as agriculture, health, oil and gas, renewable energy, education-training, culture-tourism, science-technology, and people-to-people exchange.

Preeti Saran expressed her joy at the strong growth of two-way trade in recent time, and agreed to hold the 4th Meeting of the Joint Sub-Commission on Trade in 2018 in Vietnam, which will set out measures to reach the US$15-billion trade goal by 2020.

Quy suggested the Indian side restrict trade barriers to Vietnam’s exports.

While sharing Vietnam’s opinions on international and regional issues of common concern, Preeti Saran hailed the role played by Vietnam in coordinating with the Indian side in organising the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit and the ASEAN-India Senior Officials Meeting.

With its role as the coordinator of ASEAN-India relations in 2015-2018, Vietnam is willing to serve as a bridge connecting India with other ASEAN member nations and promote all-around cooperation between the country and the bloc, Quy said.

The two sides committed to closely coordinating and supporting each other in multilateral forums, especially the UN.

The Vietnamese official spoke highly of India’s stance on recent East Sea-related issues, assuring that Vietnam is ready to work with India and other ASEAN countries to promote maritime security cooperation in regional forums in the coming time.

Both sides agreed to organise the next political consultation and strategic dialogue in Vietnam in 2019.

During his stay, Quy made a courtesy visit to Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who asked the two countries’ foreign ministries to effectively coordinate in holding the 16th Joint Commission meeting at foreign minister level in Vietnam in 2018.