Vietnam next stop for India Inc: FICCI study

A study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on India-Vietnam Trade says that Vietnam has become a potentially lucrative export market for India and top Indian corporates such as Essar and Tata Group are making big-ticket investments in projects in that country.

The key sectors where Indian exports could make headway in the Vietnamese market are: IT and IT training, agro and food processing, railways, energy and alternate energy, power transmission and generation.

In 2004, India extended a credit line of $ 27 million to Vietnam. In 2007, India officially announced yet another credit line of $45 million for Nam Chien Hydropower project.

Bilateral trade has been growing rapidly from $72 million in 1995 to over $1,018 million in 2006, with an average growth rate of 20 per cent per annum. The Tata Group and Essar signed MoUs with the Vietnamese government in 2007 for setting up steel facilities worth $527 million and $ 3.5 billion respectively.