The month is meant to celebrate the third anniversary ofbilateral comprehensive strategic partnership and the upcoming launch of the directair route between Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and New Delhi by budget carrier VietJetAir.
Speaking at the press conference, Ambassador Pham Sanh Chauintroduced 32 events during November to popularise the images and businesspotential of Vietnam as well as further deepen bilateral ties, ranging frompolitics, national defence, economy and trade to tourism, education, culturaland people-to-people exchange
Outstanding events include the Vietnam – India friendshipand cultural festival, a seminar on Vietnam – India ties, display of Vietnamesefood, a seminar on President Ho Chi Minh with India and Vietnam – India maritimesecurity cooperation, and forums on trade-investment-tourism promotion whichare due to be held in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata cities.
Chau said the launch of the route between the two nationswill meet their increasing demand for travelling. About 35,000 Vietnamese visitIndia each year, mostly to Buddhist areas while 110,000 Indians come toVietnam. These figures is expected to surge thanks to more direct flights byIndiGo and VietJet Air.
The two countries are striving to lift two-way trade to 15billion USD by 2020, after achieving 14 billion USD this year.
India and Vietnam are also considering the launch of a creditpackage worth 500 million USD for national defence that was announced by NewDelhi in 2016./.