Vietnam plays a prioritised role in India ’s “Look East” policy and India commits to further step up the strategic partnership between the two nations, said India Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna.

Krishna stated this during his talks with Hoang Binh Quan, member of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee and Head of its Commission for External Relations, who paid a visit to India from April 6-12.

Quan briefed his host on Vietnam ’s recent situation, its socio-economic achievements in 2010 and the results of the CPV’s 11 th National Congress in early 2011.

Both host and guest agreed to increase the exchange of visits at all levels and soon convene the 14 th meeting of the Inter-governmental Committee in Vietnam to seek ways of boosting the exchange of Vietnamese and Indian investment.

The officials were unanimous that the two sides should also discuss measures to raise bilateral trade turnover to 5 billion USD by 2015 and further promote cooperation in the fields of culture, education, training, science, technology, human resources development, security and national defence.

During his trip, Quan held separate meetings with National Security Advisor S. Menon; Head of the ruling National Congress Party’s Department for Foreign Affairs Karan Singh; Politburo member of the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) Pander; Secretary of the Communist Party of India Central Committee S. Phaidi; the Vice President and Secretary General of the Bharatiya Janata Party (India People’s Party); and the Chairman of the India-Vietnam Solidarity Committee.

The Vietnamese Party official also visited the state of Karnataka and its governor and the School of Public Policy and met with representatives of Vietnamese students in Bangalore city./.