The civilisational relationship between India and Vietnam spans over 2000 years, and the advent of Buddhism from India to Vietnam and the remnants of the Hindu Champa civilisation in Vietnam stand testimony to this fact. Our monks, traders and peoples interacted over centuries and intense cultural exchanges have left their imprint on our daily lives and activities. During our respective freedom struggles, the founding fathers of our nations were in close contact, laying the foundation of trust and friendship; a valued relationship that successive generations of leaders have nurtured and built upon during Vietnam’s phase of national reunification and national reconstruction.In 2017, the two countries are celebrating the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations and the 10th anniversary of our Strategic Partnership. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vietnam in September 2016, he and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc took the historic step to elevate the relationship to that of ‘Strategic Comprehensive Partnership’, a clear indication of the importance the two countries place on their relationship of long-standing traditional friendship.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi
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The recent years have witnessed a number of visits of leaders from both sides, including at the highest political levels. We enjoy good relations between political parties and legislative institutions and have established bilateral cooperation mechanisms. The relations between the two countries are marked by strong trust, mutual understanding and convergence of views on various international issues and the regional security situation in Asia.
2017 also marks the 25th anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations. India has been a dialogue partner of ASEAN since 1992 and was accorded strategic partner status in 2012. Vietnam is an important pillar of India’s ‘Act East Policy’. Vietnam has consistently supported the policy and welcomes a greater role for India in the regional and international arena. The ‘Act East’ policy was crystallised to underscore the importance of East Asian neighbours of India and to make them a priority in our foreign policy.
Our Act East policy looks beyond the traditional paradigm and aims to forge alliances with our eastern neighbors to encompass security, strategic, political, counterterrorism, and defense collaboration in addition to economic ties. Vietnam is an integral member of ASEAN and plays an important role in our Act East policy. Vietnam is ASEAN’s Coordinator for ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations from 2015 to 2018 and this would further facilitate closer cooperation between the two sides. India has pledged 1 billion USD Line of Credit for enhancing digital and physical connectivity between India and ASEAN. We also look at Vietnam’s cooperation and support towards an early realisation of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The elevation of the Strategic Partnership between the two countries to that of ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ is a clear indication of the goodwill, trust and importance the two countries place on their relationship. It is also an acknowledgment of the existing strong bilateral defense and security ties and our mutual desire to contribute to regional peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity.
The partnership covers a wide variety of topics including cooperation in development, political exchanges, defense and security, human resource development, commercial and economic ties, cultural exchanges, scholarships and Official Development Assistance.
The partnership between the two countries is extremely vibrant and dynamic; however, to fully realise the potential of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership a lot more has to be done. Both sides are committed to achieve the trade target of 15 billion USD by having greater trade and industry exchanges at the business and government levels and to remove all impediments to trade with a focus on priority areas identified by our leaders. We also desire to enhance mutual investments in key sectors.
Defence is an important component of our relationship and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Vietnam in 2016 announced a new Defence Line of Credit for Vietnam of 500 million USD for facilitating deeper defense industry cooperation. The bilateral defence cooperation includes exchange of high level visits, annual high-level dialogues, service-to-service cooperation, naval ship visits, extensive training and capacity building, defence equipment procurement and related transfer of technology, and cooperation at regional fora such as ADMM-Plus.
The Indian Embassy gives out numerous scholarships to Vietnamese citizens especially under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme. Presently, 150 ITEC slots are being offered to Vietnam every year along with 16 scholarships under the General Cultural Scholarship Scheme (GCSS), 14 scholarships under the Educational Exchange Programme (EEP) and 10 scholarships under the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) Scholarship Scheme.
