Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane on Friday proposed to Vietnam cooperation in emerging areas such as cyber security, information security, military medicine and submarine search and rescue to strengthen military level engagements between the two nations at a time when China is actively pursuing to increase its domination in the region.
The move is in line with India’s announcement on Thursday to extend a $300 million line of credit to Vietnam for the procurement of two types of patrol boats to scale up their maritime security.
Armane pitched the proposal during the 14th India-Vietnam Defence Policy Dialogue that took place here on Thursday. Aramane and Deputy Minister of National Defence of Vietnam Senior Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Chien co-chaired the meeting in which the two sides reviewed a range of bilateral defence cooperation issues, the Ministry of Defence officially stated.
Vision statement
The two countries noted the “transformative progress” in the ties after the signing of ‘Joint Vision Statement on India-Vietnam Defence Partnership towards 2030’ during the visit of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Vietnam in June 2022.
“Vietnam proposed five focus areas for cooperation which included delegation exchanges and dialogue, staff-talks; Service-to-Service cooperation; Education and training; and Defence Industry cooperation. The Defence Secretary welcomed the five-point proposal and proposed cooperation in emerging areas of concern for both countries like cyber security, information security, military medicine, submarine search and rescue,” the MoD said in a statement on Friday.
The Ministry said the Defence Secretary highlighted the potential of domestic defence industry to fulfil capacity and capability enhancement of friendly foreign countries, and looked forward to fruitful partnership with Vietnam People’s Armed Forces, and their industries.
After the meeting, the Defence Secretary and the Deputy Minister of National Defence of Vietnam signed a Letter of Intent to strengthen cooperation in the field of training including exchange of instructors and experts.