India offers USD 300 million credit line to Vietnam for trade

New Delhi: Targeting an annual bilateral commerce of USD 15 billion by 2020, India on October 28 offered a USD 300 million credit line to Vietnam for trade diversification. India has already extended a USD 100 million Line of Credit (LoC) last month to the South East Asian nation for defence procurement to help it modernise its armed forces.

During a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung where they noted that enhancing economic cooperation should be pursued as a strategic objective, a USD 300 million LoC was offered by India to strengthen commercial ties, official sources said.

Expressing satisfaction on the steady progress made in enhancing trade and investment between the countries, both the leaders agreed to take measures to significantly expand and diversify bilateral commerce for mutually beneficial results and "agreed to enhance the trade targets to USD 15 billion by 2020," a joint statement issued after the meeting said.

In 2013-14, the two-way commerce between India and Vietnam stood at USD 8 billion. The leaders also asserted that events like the India- CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) Business Conclave should be utilised by business leaders and decision makers to achieve this target and asked the business leaders of both the countries to further explore business opportunities on both sides.

Business leaders of both the countries identified several sectors as priority areas for cooperation. The sectors include hydrocarbons, power generation, infrastructure, tourism, textiles, pharmaceuticals, electronics, agriculture, agro- products, chemicals and machine tools.

The Vienamese Prime Minister welcomed Indian companies to invest in Vietnam and affirmed his country's commitment to create favourable conditions for Indian investments. "Prime Minister Modi invited the Vietnamese companies to join the accelerated economic growth programme 'Make in India' for reaping the benefits of this new initiative.

They agreed to utilise the Customs Cooperation Agreement and Maritime Shipping Agreement between the two countries for facilitating more intensive economic engagement," the statement said.