PC Chairman Received Indian Ambassador to Vietnam

On the afternoon of 21^st February 2019, a delegation from the Embassy of India in Hanoi and Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City led by H.E. Parvathaneni Harish, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India to Vietnam paid a visit to leaders of Can Tho City.

Snapshot of the courtesy call between Chairman Vo Thanh Thong and H.E. Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish on 21/02/2019 (Photo: Minh Thuy).

At the reception to welcome the delegation, Chairman of the People's Committee Mr. Vo Thanh Thong highly appreciated the great friendship and traditional relationship between Vietnam and India throughout historical upheavals.

He shared that Vietnam in general and Can Tho City in particular have got numerous supports from India in agricultural, education and training sectors. Especially, via its ITEC (Indian Technological and Economic Cooperation) program, since 2008 – 2019, 14 candidates who are civil cadres, staff of the City's Departments, line agencies have been granted with scholarships to attend short-term training courses at leading educational institutions in India. He hoped that such support could be maintained in the future to help the City's staff improve their professional skills as well as English background to better meet their work requirements.

Chairman Thong shared that export-import turnovers between Can Tho City and India in 2018 were respectively at 5.5 and 15.1 millions of USD, which meant the City's trade deficit with India hit nearly 3 times last year. As a result, the Chairman expected for meaningful and specific activities to boost the bilateral trade cooperation between Can Tho City and India and help the City to reach the trade balance with India.

The Chairman concluded by a remark to be ready to join hands with the Embassy and Consulate General to promote people-to-people relations, organize cultural exchange events to enable the increasing mutual understanding of the two peoples.

Expressing his sincere gratitude to the warm welcome of the Chairman, H.E. Ambassador showed his happiness in the development of the strategic partnership between two countries, which was upgraded into the comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016 on the occasion of the visit of PM Narendra Modi to Vietnam.

He stressed cooperation in the agricultural sector between Vietnam and India brought great benefits to Vietnam in that it assisted the country to escape from food insecurity into the second largest rice exporter of the world. Moreover, with the Indian assistance in the establishment of the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institutes, scientists and staff working there have been provided with short-term and long-term scholarships to study in India.

H.E. Ambassador suggested Can Tho City to nominate candidates to apply for scholarships to study in India for their capaCity building opportunities. The Consulate General of India in Ho Chi Minh City would provide detailed information on the offered courses and scholarship eligibility to the City for decision making.

H.E. Ambassador expressed his confidence in the two countries' targets in bilateral trade. He mentioned that the bilateral trade turnovers between Vietnam and India reached 7.8 billion USD in 2017, which was doubled in 2018. As a result, he was optimistic that the expected number of 15 billion USD could be achieved by 2020.

Before closing his part, H.E. Ambassador made a proposal for the second Rice interaction event held in Can Tho City. It was initiated after the success of the first one organized in Tien Giang last year. The event was expected to provide opportunities for G2G, G2B and B2B networks and discussions between both sides for specific cooperation activities in the future.