New Delhi (VNA) – Vice Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly Nguyen Duc Hai met with Speaker of the India Lok Sabha (lower house) Om Birla on March 17 as part of his trip to the South Asian country from March 14-19.

Hai congratulated India on its strong development under the leadership of the government and parliament led by the National Democratic Alliance, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at its core, noting India's impressive achievements in economy, military, and science technology, which have continuously enhanced the country's role and position in the region and the world.

He affirmed Vietnam’s consistent policy of prioritising its relations with India and expressed his hope that this visit would further consolidate political trust and friendship between the two countries, helping to bring the cooperation across sectors to a deeper and more substantive manner.

The Indian speaker, for his part, expressed his delight at the strong growth of the Vietnam – India relations throughout more than 50 years, with regular high-level exchanges between the two governments and parliaments, as well as growing people-to-people connections.

Birla praised Vietnam's recent economic growth and development achievements, noting that India is also focusing its resources on national development with the goal of becoming a developed nation. He held that both countries boast tremendous opportunities to expand cooperation across various fields.

The two sides concurred to promote the exchange of delegations at all levels and between parliamentary leaders while supporting the expansion of bilateral collaboration in the fields of politics, defence – security, economy – trade – investment, agriculture, culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges.

The speaker agreed with Hai on the necessity to boost two-way trade and investment towards the 20 billion USD target in bilateral trade in the coming time and carry out measures to further open their markets. They were unanimous to enhance agricultural cooperation, a field where both countries share many commonalities, and step up cultural and tourism collaboration by increasing tours, routes, tourism products, and air connectivity.

Hai took this occasion to thank India for its continuous financial and technical support for the restoration of the Cham tower complexes at the My Son Sanctuary - a UNESCO World Heritage site. Additionally, he suggested the two sides strengthen mutual investment and called on major Indian corporations to invest in Vietnam, particularly in strategic infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and high technology.

The two sides agreed to enhance cooperation between their legislative bodies and promote exchanges between specialised committees of the parliaments to share legislative experiences, particularly regarding digital transformation, digital parliament development, and application of technology to improve parliamentary efficiency.

ꦯ Birla said that the Lok Sabha will soon establish an India-Vietnam Parliamentary Friendship Group and expressed readiness to support Vietnam in training legislative staff.

The same day, Hai had a working session with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in which he congratulated the agency on its important contributions to India's development and on India's assumption of the presidency of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) for the 2024-2027 term.

He spoke highly of the effective cooperation between the State Audit Office of Vietnam and the CAG and affirmed the Vietnamese NA’s support for the two agencies’ future cooperation to build a transparent and strong financial system with sustainable development.

Hai proposed the two sides soon renew their bilateral cooperation agreement in auditing, promote professional cooperation and training programmes, share experiences in improving audit quality to serve parliamentary activities, and expand cooperation in new areas such as digital environment auditing and auditing for sustainable development goals.

Comptroller and Auditor General of India S.Sanjay Murthy shared India’s auditing experience, particularly the application of science – technology and digital transformation in the work./.