Five key sectors have been identified as five pillars of the strategic partnership between India and Vietnam. They include cooperation in politics and diplomacy, trade, investments and tourism, security and defence, science and technology, culture and education. H.E. Mr Ton Sinh Thanh, Ambassador of Vietnam to India, responds to questions for Sayantan Chakravarty, Editor and Publisher, India Empire Publications

We understand there are 5 key sectors which have been identified as thrust areas for economic and commercial engagement between Vietnam and India. Kindly elaborate on these sectors…?

Vietnam and India established strategic partnership in 2007. Five 5 key sectors have been identified as 5 pillars of the strategic partnership. The first and most important pillar is political and diplomatic cooperation, based on mutual trust and convergence of interests, with regular Political Consultations and Strategic Dialogues between the two Foreign Offices besides frequent exchange of visits of high-ranking leaders of both countries. The second pillar is economic cooperation with focus of mutual efforts to have more trade, investments and tourism between the two countries. The third pillar is a security-defence cooperation. The fourth is a scientific-technological cooperation. The fifth is cultural-educational dimension.

Bilateral trade between India and Vietnam continues to grow year by year. India is now among the top 10 trading partners of Vietnam. What are the factors that have led to this energetic business momentum between the two nations?

In my opinion, the first factor is the rapid growth at more than 7% in India and more than 6% in Vietnam over the past 10 years, which have led to the demand in both countries. India can now export many products to Vietnam such as machineries, textiles, pharmaceuticals, animal feed, chemicals… Vietnam can export to India a lot of mobile phones, fish, peppers, rubber. The second factor is the efforts by both sides in promoting their products by participating in trade fairs in both countries and exchange of trade delegations between them. The third factor is the facilitating efforts by the governments of the two countries by implementing the ASEAN-India Free trade agreement, that reduce import tariff of more than 6,000 product lines between the ASEAN and India. This also includes the recent effort by Indian Government in offering $300 million Line of Credit to help Vietnam diversify sources of textile and garment materials from India.