Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Tuesday co-chaired the 17th Meeting of the Viet Nam-India Joint Commission on Economic, Commercial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation.

The 17th Meeting of the Viet Nam-India Joint Commission on Economic, Commercial,
Scientific and Technological Cooperation held in form of online conference on
August 25, 2020. Photo: VGP

The meeting, held in form of online conference, aimed to review the progress of the two countries’ comprehensive strategic partnership since the previous meeting and charter orientations for a new stage of bilateral cooperation.

Addressing the meeting, Deputy PM, FM Minh highlighted that both countries have ceaselessly consolidated their political trust through regular exchanges of high-level contacts and visits across channels.

In the Covid-19 pandemic time, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi held phone talks on April 13, during which the sides agreed to foster the existing cooperation mechanisms, promptly review the implementation of the action program for the 2017-2020 period.

Deputy PM, FM Minh and Indian FM Jaishankar agreed that the two countries need to coordinate closely in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. The latter spoke highly of Viet Nam’s measures to deal with the pandemic while the former expressed thanks to the Indian side for their support for citizen protection.

The pair agreed defense-security cooperation remains one of the key pillars of the bilateral relations, highly valuing such mechanisms like defense policy and security dialogues.

Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Indian Foreign Minister
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar sign the Minutes of the 17th Meeting of the Viet Nam-India
Joint Commission on Economic, Commercial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation.
Photo: VGP
 

Regarding economic cooperation, Minh called on the two countries to sustain efforts to soon realize the trade goal of US$15 billion and sign a memorandum of understanding on trade remedy.

The Indian FM  pledged to consider seriously Viet Nam’s proposal to remove technical barriers against Vietnamese exports to his country.

On multilateral cooperation, Minh treasured the sides’ mutual support at international organizations and forums, expressing thanks for India’s support for Mekong- Ganga Cooperation framework.

He also congratulated India on its election as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term, starting from January 2021.

Meanwhile, FM Jaishankar affirmed India attaches importance to the ASEAN centrality in the region, highly valuing Viet Nam’s role as the coordinator of the ASEAN-India relations in the 2015-2018 period.

Both sides underscored the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation as well as peaceful settlement of disputes in the East Sea on the basis of international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

They also called on parties to respect the rulings issued by the dispute settlement mechanisms under the UNCLOS./.