Vietnam, India Boost Comprehensive Cooperation

Vietnam and India have regularly hold activities to boost further the bilateral comprehensive cooperation in economy, culture and education since their diplomatic relations established. This strategic relation is continuously strengthening and strongly developing until now.

 

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies located in Kolkata on May 15 and 16 co-organised an international conference themed “Relations between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - A Strategic Commitment or Regional Integration” under the sponsor by the Indian consulate general.

 

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is an independent institute under the India’s Ministry of culture. The conference, part of a series of conferences under the “India – ASEAN research programme” hold by the institute, is aimed at evaluating regional research activities turning around the relationships between India and Southeast Asian nations. The programme is expected to help regional research institutes carry out researches on economic, political, cultural, and social issues between India and Southeast Asian countries. The conference is the first in a series planned by Maulana Abul Kalam institute in Southeast Asian countries.

 

The Indian delegation, led by Professor Jayanta Kumar Ray, director of the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, with representations of the ambassador Krisshnan Srinivasan – Indian Ex-deputy minister of foreign affairs and the ambassador P.S.Sahai, attended the event. Representatives from India, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia also participated in the conference. Participations of famous polyhistors and activists in research on an event on India has never happened in Ho Chi Minh City. Speeches on many respects of the relationship between India and Southeast Asian nations, especially Vietnam was discussed and decided at the ten-session conference.

 

Despite not having the border, Asian countries of Vietnam and India have mutual exchange on culture, religion, and economy over thousands of year ago, especially the two countries established their diplomatic relations in 1972.

 

In its policy directing toward the East, India considered the ASEAN as the centre to boost cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region of where Vietnam is a reliable and important partner. There are many things in common between the policy directing toward the East of India and the diplomatic policy of Vietnam in the innovation age themed “diversifying, mutilating, making friend and reliable partners with countries all over the world” created the mutual cooperation in the country building work of the two nations.

 

Foreign direct investment (FDI) from India in Vietnam had a big change in 2007 with the investment from Essar and Tata groups. These projects brought India to the top ten of Vietnam’s biggest investors, and helped Vietnam rank the top among ASEAN countries get the biggest FDI from India. Other Indian big groups including ONGC, NIIT, Ranbaxy and Godrej also chose Vietnam as the destination to invest in. India showed its desire of furthering the bilateral trade cooperation between the two countries in the coming time. J.N Misra, Indian consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City said the balance of trade between the countries now leans to India, hoping that the two governments will try their utmost to equilibrate their balance of trade and lift investment cooperation between the two countries to the new height. 

 

Polyhistors showed their profound interest in promoting the information technology field between the two countries in ten sessions under the conference. India is one among the world’s leading countries in information technology. Boosting cooperation with India will be a good chance for Vietnam to approach the most advanced technologies for its national development in the integration age. India also considers Vietnam as the focus of choosing partners for developing the information technology because Vietnamese people are very intelligent; especially students are very diligent, and sharp-witted in catching IT achievements, Krishnan Srinivasan said. The National Institute for Information Technology of India (NIIT) now has 16 training centres in 16 cities nationwide. The institute has trained over 8,000 computer programmers. The APTECH currently has 35 training centres and has trained over 30,000 software experts including lots of Vietnamese trainees. NIIT is currently mapping out many cooperation programmes with Vietnamese universities in order to promote IT human resources for the development.

 

India not only focuses on education and cultural development but also on trading activities. Regarding education cooperation, India granted scholarships to candidates from five provinces of Vietnam. Selected candidates had chances to study at famous universities in India. In the past time, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad institute sent five its officials to study and research about culture, religion and society at Vietnam’s universities, Professor Jayanta Kumar Ray said. The professor hopes that the institute and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in particular and the Vietnam and India in general will have much more cooperation opportunities in education in the coming time. The two countries will send their postgraduates to its friendly nation for bringing the education between the two countries to the new height.

 

Culture sector is also a “hot point” discussed at the conference. Cultural exchange activities between the two nations have taken place with animation and regularity over the past time, J.N Misra said. Specifically, in August 2007, India sent a great deal of its cultural delegations to exchange and perform art performance programmes. Of which, two performances by eight groups of Indian artist took placed in Ho Chi Minh City was strikingly successful and spread to south-western provinces of Tien Giang and My Tho. Furthering cultural exchange activities between the two countries in the future has an important meaning to help the peoples know thoroughly about their mutual culture, strengthening their relationship in all fields.   

The relationship between India and Vietnam is more and closer since they signed over 30 comprehensive cooperation agreements in all fields. The two-day event with 10 sessions opened many new cooperation opportunities in economy, culture, and education, as well as brought many bright hopes to the two countries in their process to integrate into a general prosperous bloc. Specifically, a memorandum of understanding on cooperating in education singed between the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies at the conference’s closing ceremony opened a great deal of expectation of cooperating in training human resources with high quality to serve the two countries’ integration and development.