The government of India considers economic cooperation with Vietnam a focus of its Looking East policy, said the Indian Ambassador to Vietnam Tal L. Muana.
When addressing the Vietnam-India Trade and Investment Forum in Hanoi on Oct. 7, Ambassador Muana confirmed that India ’s leaders will do their best to facilitate businesses from both countries.
Firstly India will provide Vietnamese exporters with free stands at the forthcoming Indian International Trade Fair (IITF), he added.
In his opinion, despite its dependence on exports while the country’s major export markets have not completely recovered due to the impacts of the global economic crisis, Vietnam’s economy has seen many positive signs on the road to recovery and now is time to promote trade and investment between the two countries.
The founder of the Indian Business Association in Vietnam, Shantanu Srivastava called upon Vietnamese enterprises to open up representative offices in India to take full advantage of its fast growing.
Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Thanh Bien praised the Indian entrepreneurs for visiting Vietnam, adding that both countries need to increase the exchange of information relating to trade and investment policies and promotional activities.
He also encouraged Indian businesses to increase their investment in oil and gas exploration, chemicals and information technology in Vietnam .
The representatives of 50 Indian enterprises dealing in garments and textiles, construction materials, telecoms equipment, food processing, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment are on a fact-finding tour to Vietnam from Oct. 3-13.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade , Vietnamese-Indian economic cooperation has made a lot of progress and bilateral trade value has climbed to an average annual growth rate of 20 percent in recent years.
In 2008, two way trade value between both countries reached 2.5 billion USD, of which Vietnam exported goods worth nearly 387 million USD to India , a year-on-year increase of 46 percent. However, Vietnam ’s exports to India in the first eight months of this year stood at only 222 million USD due to the impacts of the global economic crisis, down by 14 percent against last year.
During this period, India invested in 35 projects in Vietnam with a total registered capital of more than 200 million USD and ranks 29th out of the 88 countries and territories that invest in the Southeast Asian country./.