Hanoi (VNA) ✃– A business forum was held in Hanoi on November 2 in an effort to boost trade and investment partnerships between Vietnam and India – one of the 10 biggest trade partners of the Southeast Asian nation.

Hoang Quang Phong, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) – the forum organiser, said strengthening bilateral trade and investment cooperation is among activities promoted by the two Governments from now to 2020 so as to realise the countries’ strategic partnership. Indian Ambassador to Vietnam Parvathaneni Harish said his country’s delegation to Vietnam this time includes President of the Confederation of Indian Industry Naushad Forbes, and executives of big groups and enterprises that want to invest in renewable energy, information technology, infrastructure and consumer goods production. The forum is to concretise the commitments made between the Governments during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s working visit to Vietnam last September, he noted. While Vietnam has advantages in labour intensive industries like garment and processing, India is interested in developing technology and services. Bilateral trade hit 5.1 billion USD in 2015, including 2.4 billion USD of Vietnam’s exports. It reached 2.9 billion USD from January to July 2016. Vietnam mainly exports mobile phones, computers, electronic products and components, coal, rubber, ore and farm produce to India. Its imports from this country include materials for animal feed production, medicine, and machinery. The Ministry of Planning and Investment said Vietnam is increasingly attractive to Indian companies, which had 118 investment projects worth 439 million USD in Vietnam by the end of 2015, making their country rank 28th among 62 countries and territories investing here. By the end of last September, India poured an additional 85 million USD into Vietnam, raising its total investment capital to 524 million USD, mostly in mining, oil and gas, mineral and farm produce processing, and information technology. Phong said despite certain difficulties like a shortage of market information, consumers’ different tastes and a coincidence in export items, enterprises’ activeness and the two Government’s facilitation as well as regular trade promotion activities or business forums will be a considerable driving force for the intensification of the Vietnam-India strategic partnership.-VNA