Vietnam vows to facilitate Indian businesses
THE VIETNAMESE government says it is continuing to improve the legal framework and policies to create a favourable business climate for foreign investors, regarded as one of the most important parts of the nation’s economy.
President Tran Dai Quang delivered this statement at a reception celebrating the recent visit by Indronil Sengupta, chief executive of Tata Group in Vietnam, to Hanoi.
During the event, Quang hailed Tata’s business expansions in Vietnam and expressed his belief that the completion of the group’s Long Phu 2 thermal power plant in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang would contribute to accelerating relations between the two countries and encourage more Indian business investment in Vietnam.
He said there remained room for Vietnamese and Indian businesses to speed up trade and investment cooperation, especially because the two countries have joined a number of free-trade deals and established a comprehensive India-Vietnam strategic partnership last September.
He called on the Tata Group to utilise these untapped opportunities better so that India soon could become one of Vietnam’s leading foreign investors.
Quang outlined electricity, machinery, engineering and infrastructure development as promising sectors where the group could make fruitful Vietnamese investments.
For his part, Sengupta said Tata group planned to develop new projects in Vietnam. These projects will be involved in several industries, such as renewable energy, coffee processing, automotive and agricultural machinery, he said.
Bilateral trade between Vietnam and India has increased significantly over the past decade, from US$1 billion (Bt36 billion) in 2006 to $5.5 billion last year, according to the Vietnamese Trade Office in India.
During this period, Vietnam’s exports to the South Asian country have grown by a whopping 250 per cent.
The two nations have targeted raising bilateral trade to $15 billion by 2020.
