India, Vietnam sign agreement on civil nuclear energy

| | New Delhi
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India, Vietnam sign agreement on civil nuclear energy

Sunday, 04 March 2018 | Vineeta Pandey | New Delhi

Strategic partners India and Vietnam on Saturday signed three agreements including one in the field of civil nuclear energy following the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. The other two pacts were in the field of agriculture and trade and economic cooperation. In addition, during their delegation level talks the two leaders also discussed ways to enhance collaboration and cooperation in the field of oil-natural gas exploration, defence and security.

Backing Vietnam and other ASEAN countries in their territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea (SCS), Modi in a statement before media said both sides expressed commitment for an open, efficient and rules-based regional architecture and to expand bilateral maritime cooperation further. "We will jointly work for an open, independent and prosperous Indo Pacific region where sovereignty and international laws are respected and where differences are resolved through talks," PM said.

On his part, Quang, while supporting India's connectivity plans in the ASEAN region, stressed on the need for freedom of navigation and over-flight and underlined disputes must be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means. Quang added that Vietnam supports India's connectivity project with ASEAN.

"We reaffirm our close collaboration to support India to further its relations and multi-faceted connectivity with ASEAN attaching high importance to the maintenance of security, maritime safety and freedom of navigation and over flight, settlement of disputes by peaceful means on the basis of international law including UlClOS (UN Convention on the law of the Sea)," Quang said.

India and Vietnam share special bonding and the country remains centre of India's Rs Act East Policy'. last year despite strong objections from Beijing and tension in the SCS, Vietnam renewed the contract to India's ONGC Videsh by another two years, for oil exploration in block 128. China, has been constantly objecting to India's involvement in oil and natural gas exploration in the Vietnam's economic zone in the SCS where a large part of global trade passes through. India's interest in the SCS is more for strategic reason than commercial.

Taking forward their defence partnership, the two leaders also discussed possibilities of co-production of weapons and allowing transfer of technology to enhance the capabilities of each other. India plans to help Vietnam in improving its weaponry by joint production and sale of missiles, ships and guns. In addition India also trains Vietnamese Sukhoi pilots along with other military personnel.

"Defence is an important aspect of our relationship and today we decided to have cooperation in the field of defence production. We will also explore the possibility of co-production and transfer of technology," Modi said. Quang said both sides have agreed to work closely to address regional security challenges including in the domain of maritime and cyber security.

On the economic issues, talks focused on deepening trade and investment ties in various sectors. Our trade and investment ties are strong and despite a global economic slowdown our trade is constantly growing. "In the last five years our bilateral trade has grown from $6 billion to over $10 billion. During our talks today we discussed ways to make our economic ties stronger by including sectors like renewable energy, agriculture and agro-products, textiles, oil and gas. The field of oil and natural gas we will not only collaborate bilaterally but will also look for trilateral partnership," Modi said.

Among the three agreements signed on Saturday, the MoU on economic and trade cooperation will facilitate establishment a framework for enhancing economic and trade promotion, the pact in agriculture is a work plan for 2018-2022 to promote cooperation in transfer of technology and exchange of visits of technical experts in the fields of agriculture; and MoU on Cooperation between the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership, India (GCNEP) and the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute (VINATOM) is to strengthen the technical cooperation in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

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