People with knowledge of the situation claim that Vietnam is pressing for its Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to visit India.
In recent years, India and Vietnam have developed a close strategic alliance. In 2016, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vietnam, the two countries’ relations were elevated to the status of a “comprehensive strategic partnership.”
The planned trip will be a part of a pattern of increased political interaction between the two nations. Along with Modi, Rajnath Singh, the defense minister, S Jaishankar, and former president Ramnath Kovind have all visited Vietnam.
Vietnam purchased high-speed patrol boats from India using a $100 million line of credit that India granted for military acquisitions.
If the visit happens, it may be on the schedule to finalize a $500 million credit line for additional defense purchases that was mentioned during Singh’s visit.
“India and Vietnam continue to have the most trustworthy relations in contemporary times with broader convergence of interests and common concerns. Bilateral defence engagements have expanded over a period of time to include wide-ranging contacts between the two countries, including Defence Policy Dialogues, military to military exchanges, high level visits, capacity building and training programs, cooperation in UN Peace keeping, ship visits and bilateral exercises,” reads a joint vision statement on defence released after Singh’s visit to Vietnam in June 2022.
For the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank, Sameer Patil says that “these ties assume additional significance in the backdrop of India’s two-year-long border stand-off with China in Ladakh, and Beijing’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea that directly impact Vietnamese security.”
Hanoi is eager to cooperate with New Delhi in order to balance out the rising Chinese assertiveness in the area and to balance out the “push and pull” dynamics of its interactions with Russia and the US.
The shared mistrust of China between New Delhi and Hanoi has given rise to more and more common ground.
In 2022, trade between the two nations reached $15 billion. The two parties were engaged in preliminary trade negotiations, according to a previous report from Mint.
“Bilateral commerce between India and Vietnam has been steadily increasing over the past few years, and both nations committed to look into concrete and doable steps to reach the trade goal of $15 billion as soon as possible. According to the Indian Embassy in Vietnam, overall merchandise trade between India and Vietnam was $10.68 billion in 2018 and $ 11.21 billion in 2019.
Iron and steel, electric equipment, cotton, and cereals are among the exports from India to Vietnam. Among other things, Vietnam exports inorganic chemicals, plastic products, machinery, and electronic and electrical equipment.
