Prime Minister of Russia Dimitry A. Medvedev	President of India Ram Nath Kovind

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam will welcome President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister of Russia Dimitry A. Medvedev on their official visits to the country starting on Sunday.

The Indian leader’s visit is made at the invitation of Party General Secretary, President Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

The three-day visit by President Kovind is meant to help maintain the sound development trend of bilateral relations, Vietnam News Agency quoted Vietnamese Ambassador to India Phạm Sanh Châu as saying in an interview.

During this visit, the two sides will review their achievements to enhance connections. They will also discuss issues of common concern, especially regional and global matters.

Châu noted that the political ties and trust between the two countries had been increasingly strengthened through frequent mutual high-ranking visits, especially since they set up the comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016. Meanwhile, defence-security cooperation was viewed as an important and effective pillar of their comprehensive strategic partnership.

Defence co-operation had been lifted to the highest-ever level, and India has become one of the most important defence partners of Việt Nam, said the diplomat.

Aside from the sound relations in politics-diplomacy and defence-security, bilateral economic-trade partnerships had enjoyed great strides in recent years, he said, elaborating that India had emerged as one of the top 12 trade partners of Việt Nam.

The Russian PM’s official visit to Việt Nam on Sunday and Monday looks to continue stepping up ties across politics, economy, trade, national defence-security, science-technology, education-training, culture, tourism, and locality-to-locality exchange between the two countries.

The visit, at the invitation of PM Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, takes place at a time when the two countries will celebrate the Việt Nam Year in Russia and Russia Year in Việt Nam during 2019-2020, the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty on fundamental principles of Việt Nam – Russia friendly relations in 2019 and the 70th founding anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2020.

On March 1, 2001, Việt Nam and Russia signed a joint statement on strategic partnership. Later, on July 27, 2012, both sides issued a joint statement on further strengthening bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Two-way trade rose from US$2.2 billion in 2015 to $3.55 billion in 2017. Việt Nam mostly exports mobile phones, apparel, farm produce, and seafood to Russia while importing petroleum, iron and steel, fertiliser, machinery and equipment.

Russia now ranks 23rd among countries and territories investing in Việt Nam with 116 projects worth a total of $990 million, mostly in oil and gas, manufacturing, mining, transportation, telecommunications, and aquaculture. — VNS