A senior government official on Friday said Vietnam is a “central pillar” of India’s Act East Policy, ANI reported. Secretary (East) for the External Affairs Ministry Preeti Saran said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing trip to the Southeast Asian country aims to strengthen India’s bilateral ties with Hanoi, especially in the areas of defence and trade.

India’s “priorities for cooperation” also included integrating itself further into the Association for Southeast Asian Nations and “leveraging interactions in the regional and international forums”, Saran said. The ministry official added that trade between the two countries had grown at nearly 26% per annum and currently stood at $7.8 billion (approximately Rs 52,000 crore). Both New Delhi and Hanoi had earlier set a trade target of $15 billion (approximately Rs 1 lakh crore), she said.

Modi will remain in Vietnam till Saturday evening, after which he will fly to Hangzhou in China for the G20 summit on September 4 and 5. He is expected to participate in dialogues on terror financing and cross-border mobility, among other issues. The prime minister will also head to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic for the annual Indian-ASEAN and East Asia summits. According to analysts, China is monitoring Modi’s Vietnam visit closely as Beijing and Hanoi are involved in a dispute over the resource-rich South China Sea.