Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on May 23 sent a message of congratulations to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the successful organisation of the 17th Lok Sabha (House of People or lower house of India) election.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: Reuters)

In his message, the Vietnamese PM congratulated the BJP Party and the National Democratic Alliance for their victory in the election. He voiced his hope that under the leadership of PM Modi, the government and people of India would gain more impressive achievements in the coming time. 

PM Phuc also pledged to closely cooperate with the Indian PM to strengthen the two nations’ traditional friendship and comprehensive strategic partnership in a substantive and effective manner. 

Vietnam and India set up their diplomatic ties on January 7, 1972. In 2007, the Vietnam-India relationship was lifted to strategic partnership level, with a focus on politics-diplomacy, national defence-security, economy-trade, energy, science-technology and culture-education.

Following the Vietnam’s visit by Indian PM Modi in September 2016, both sides upgraded their strategic partnership to a comprehensive strategic partnership to meet demand in the new situation. 

Statistics show that trade between Vietnam and India reached 10.7 billion USD in 2018, up 39 percent from 2017, with export value hitting 6.5 billion USD, up 75 percent, and import revenue up 5.2 percent.  

India has, to date, run 208 FDI projects in Vietnam with total registered capital of about 878 million USD, ranking 26th out of 129 countries and territories investing in the Southeast Asian nation.