About 15 months ago Vietnamese Airlines and Jet Airways signed an agreement for direct flights between Hanoi and New Delhi or Mumbai, but this has not come into effect. There may be talks about opening of direct flights routes between Hanoi and New Delhi or Ho Chi Minh city and New Delhi.

Negotiations are afoot for operation of Indian banks in Vietnam as per agreement signed between the State Bank of Vietnam and the Reserve Bank of India..

The Vice President is being accompanied by the Indian Minister of State for Corporate Affairs with independent charge, Sachin Pilot, Secretary (East) in the Indian External Affairs Ministry and also the Joint Secretary (South) in the Indian External Affairs Ministry, Sanjay Bhattacharyya and other senior Government officials apart from a business delegation. Four Parliamentarians are also accompanying the Vice President.

The Vice President will hold discussions with Vietnamese leadership. He will visit Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

India has already extended about a Rs 561 crore line of credit (LoC) to Vietnam. Discussions are on for extending another $ 100 million LoC. A major part of the existing LoC are being used for a hydro-power project.

Discussions are underway for Indian investments in steel, energy and engineering sectors.

Tata group has planned a $5 billion Greenfield steel project in south Vietnam and negotiations are underway.

“They are now in the process of completing all the formalities and agreements that are necessary before the actual project can begin,” Joint Secretary (South) in the Indian External Affairs Ministry, Sanjay Bhattacharyya said.

There are 78 Indian projects in Vietnam, about 16 of which are of companies based outside India. The total investment for these projects are about $790 million. Most of the Indian investments are in agriculture, carbon black, fertilizer, healthcare and information technology.

India is slated to set up an Indian Culture Centre in Hanoi. The Archaeological Survey of India will be taking up a $3 million project for the restoration of the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Mỹ Sơn, which is part of the Champa civilization which has a Hindu link.

India is keen on investments in oil and gas sector in Vietnam. Indian public sector company ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) has been exploring oil and gas in Vietnam since 1980s.

To a query about the recent pull out by OVL due to a controversy raised by China on exploration in South China Sea, the Official Spokesperson in the Indian External Affairs Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin said : “We already have gas which is coming out from Vietnamese wells and it started almost a decade ago. I think your reference is to the blocks where there was this debate in last summer when the oil lease for those blocks – 128 and 127 if I am not mistaken – were to expire in last June. At that stage, our technical assessment was that it was not a commercially viable proposition at that stage given that you need to get equipment which is pretty costly to hire etc: and at that stage it was difficult and it was not a viable process to go ahead with. The Vietnamese Government and the Vietnamese oil organizations had then provided us the two more year option to consider this and decide on it in June 2014. So, we at this stage in process of the ONGC evaluating whether it would be techno-commercially viable.”

At the recent ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in Delhi on December 20, 2012 the Vietnam Prime Minister Tan Dung had said 'we seek India's support on basis of ASEAN 6-point formula to settle the South China Sea crisis alongwith China.'

India, however, played safe and reiterated that it believes in freedom of navigation and safety of sea lanes of communication (SLOCs). The territorial dispute between Vietnam and China over South China Sea should be resolved bilaterally. The ASEAN formula should also be considered and global laws on seas should be respected.

The Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh when he was in India on January 9 said : “We are committed to continue to cooperate closely at international and regional forums. Especially we are committed to maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, freedom of navigation over the seas, and also access to resources in the East Sea of Vietnam. We are committed to avoiding violence or threatening to use violence in resolution of disputes in the sea. We would want to have peaceful negotiations based on international law especially the 1982 UNCLOS, the six-point principle of ASEAN, the …(Inaudible)… construction at the sea …(Inaudible)… in the South China Sea.”

The Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister had urged for greater Indian investments and cooperation in tourism. He urged for raising the bilateral trade from $ 4 billion in 2011 to $ 7 billion by 2015.

India exports mostly pharmaceuticals, machinery and auto parts to Vietnam and imports largely mobile telephones and accessories, coffee and coal from Vietnam.

India and Vietnam signed an Agreement for Strategic Partnership in July 2007. India-Vietnam relations cover political understanding, defence and security, trade and investment, S&T and education, capacity building and bilateral assistance and cultural and people-to-people contacts.

Defence cooperation between the two countries has been for a fairly long period of time. India is engaged in several training programmes for the Vietnamese armed forces. Indian naval ships visit Vietnam on a regular basis and have port calls. There has been several visits of senior Indian military officials to Vietnam and also military officials from Vietnam visited India. India has Defence, Security, Strategic Dialogue at the level of Defence Secretary/Vice Minister with Vietnam.

The visit of the Indian Vice-President is part of the ongoing high-level interactions between India and Vietnam and will highlight the India-Vietnam Friendship Year which was launched in 2012 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations, and the fifth anniversary of India-Vietnam Strategic Partnership.

The foundation of India-Vietnam relationship in contemporary times was laid in the interactions between the then Indian Prime Minister Nehru and then Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh more than fifty years ago. The relations between the two countries are elevated to the level of strategic partnership during the visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to India in July 2007.

The Indian Vice President’s visit to Vietnam is a part of the high-level exchanges between the two sides. In recent years, from the Vietnamese side the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had visited India in July 2007, and then again in December 2012 for the India-ASEAN Commemorative Summit.

Vietnamese Vice-President had visited India in 2009. The Chairman of Vietnam National Assembly, who is currently the General Secretary of the party, had visited India in 2010. The President of Vietnam had paid a visit in 2011.

The then Indian President had visited Vietnam in 2008. Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had visited Vietnam for the India-ASEAN Summit in 2010. Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had visited Vietnam in 2011.

In the India-Vietnam Friendship Year 2012 there had been several cultural and academic events in each other’s countries, both in the capital cities as well as in the hinterland. These included international conferences on Budhism, Tagore and the Champ civilizational links which were held in Vietnam.

India has assisted Vietnam in capacity building through training programmes, particularly through the ITEC programme. It has also established several institutions in Vietnam. These are particularly in the areas of ICT. There is an Institute of Entrepreneurship Development, vocational training, English language, and we have an agricultural institute there as well. In total, there are about 150 scholarships that are offered under ITEC, and there are about 60 that are offered under the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.