General Secretary, President To Lam holds talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi

General Secretary, President To Lam holds talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi

On May 6, in New Delhi, right after the state welcome ceremony co-chaired by Indian President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Modi, the General Secretary, President of Vietnam made the statement during talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

General Secretary and President Lam congratulated India on its remarkable development achievements and credited Prime Minister Modi’s leadership and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition Government for elevating India to the world’s fourth largest economy and one of the leading sci-tech hubs. He expressed confidence that India will successfully realise its goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047, with an increasingly prominent role and standing on the global stage.

Prime Minister Modi, for his part, congratulated the top Vietnamese leader on his election as State President by Vietnam’s 16th National Assembly. He stressed that General Secretary and President Lam's visit to India, coming immediately after the success of the CPV’s 14th National Congress and the completion of the consolidation of Vietnam’s top state leadership, carries profound historical significance, particularly in the year both countries mark the 10th anniversary of their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

India always considers Vietnam one of its foremost partners in its “Act East” policy, he said, believing that Vietnam will successfully achieve its development goals of becoming a a modern industrial, upper-middle-income developing country by 2030, and a high-income developed nation by 2045, he said.

According to him, the two countries share common values, vision, and aspirations for independence and self-reliance, alongside a commitment to rules-based world order anchored in international law. Such forms a solid base for joint work, mutual support and active contributions to peace, stability and development across the region and beyond.

On this occasion, the two leaders expressed delight at the robust gains across multiple areas over the past decade since the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was established. Political trust has been steadily fostered, while national defence-security ties have deepened into a key strategic pillar. Economic, trade, and investment ties have been growing, with two-way trade rising annually to top 16.4 billion USD in 2025. Cultural and people-to-people connectivity remain a bright spot, buoyed by nearly 90 direct flights and growing tourist flows.

The Vietnamese leader stressed that ample potential and advantages remain to widen collaboration and deliver tangible benefits to their people and businesses. He called on both countries to keep improving greater market access for each other’s enterprises.

On such basis, the two sides agreed to lift ties to an “Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” guided by the spirit of “shared vision, strategic convergence, and substantive cooperation”, ushering in a new phase of bilateral development.

To concretise the Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, they set strategic directions to further deepen cooperation across various areas. They affirmed the need to solidify political trust based on shared vision, viewing it as the core foundation steering bilateral relations. Both sides pledged to maintain high-level exchanges and regular contacts, while further upholding the effectiveness of existing cooperation mechanisms, including the Vietnam–India Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation.

Host and guest underscored the pivotal role of national defence-security ties, reaffirming commitments to expanding collaboration in defence industry, security industry, maritime security, cybersecurity, information sharing, and counterterrorism. India pledged continued support for Vietnam in training, capacity building, and enhancing its national defence-security capabilities.

General Secretary, President To Lam holds talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi: Overview of the talks. (Photo: VNA)

On economic, trade, and investment ties, they promised to pursue breakthrough measures that sharpen complementarity based on mutual benefit, particularly through stronger linkages in global supply and value chains. They aim to raise two-way trade to 25 billion USD by 2030 in a balanced and sustainable manner, while clearing trade barriers and facilitating greater market access for each other’s goods.

The Vietnamese leader affirmed readiness to increase imports from India to diversify inputs for domestic production, and called on India to gradually ease regulations tied to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification for Vietnamese products.

The two sides pushed for quality, two-way investment and committed all possible support for major corporations from each country to pursue large-scale, flagship projects in the other, particularly in infrastructure, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, and high technology.

The Vietnamese and Indian leaders agreed to make sci-tech, innovation, and digital transformation key engines of the next phase of the two countries' ties. Both sides committed to broader cooperation in core technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, information technology, 6G, healthcare, as well as the exploration and processing of critical minerals and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. They also pledged to foster a collaborative ecosystem among technology enterprises, with a view to creating joint ventures, research and development centres, and shared innovation hubs.

They further vowed to fortify the social foundation of bilateral ties by enhancing joint wok in culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges, while upholding shared cultural, historical, and religious values. They also stressed the importance of boosting connectivity in aviation and logistics, as well as among localities and key economic and tech centres. Modi noted that many Vietnamese visit India each year for pilgrimage and hoped for stronger tourism cooperation, while encouraging Vietnamese firms to expand investment in India’s tourism sector.

On global and regional issues, they reaffirmed their commitment to close coordination and mutual support at multilateral forums such as the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as ASEAN-led mechanisms. The Indian PM spoke highly of ASEAN’s central role. Both sides stressed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight, and settling disputes through peaceful means in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982).

Following the talks, the leaders witnessed the signing and exchange of numerous cooperation agreements covering sci-tech, critical minerals, healthcare, tourism and culture, finance, cybersecurity, locality-to-locality cooperation, and auditing.

They agreed to direct relevant ministries and agencies to swiftly and effectively follow the signed agreements, ushering Vietnam–India relations into a new development stage. Both sides believed that with the shared determination of their leaders and people, bilateral ties will continue to grow stronger, deeper and more substantive, serving the interests of both nations while contributing to peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

On this occasion, General Secretary and President Lam conveyed greetings from Vietnamese Party and State leaders to Prime Minister Modi and other Indian leaders, and extended an invitation to Modi to visit Vietnam in the near future. Prime Minister Modi gladly accepted the invitation.