Modi leaves for tour of Vietnam, China tomorrow

New Delhi, Sep 1 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi setsoff tomorrow on a bilateral visit to Vietnam and to attend theannual summit of powerful G-20 grouping in China’s Hangzhouwhere India is likely to seek concrete measures to checkterror financing and crackdown on tax evasion. Modi’s first destination will be Vietnam from where hewill leave for Hangzhou on September 3 to attend the G-20summit on September 4 and 5. The Prime Minister will return toIndia on September 5 and will again leave for Laos on atwo-day visit to attend the annual India-ASEAN and East AsiaSummits. In Vietnam, Modi will hold wide-ranging talks with topleadership of the resource-rich country to deepen ties in keyareas of defence, security and trade, and ramping up India’sengagement in oil exploration. India’s ONGC Videsh Limited is engaged in oil explorationprojects in Vietnam for over three decades and there may beannouncements about new projects in the sector during thebilateral visit, which is taking place after a gap of 15years. At the G-20 Summit, India is likely to raise a host ofissues ranging from choking terror funding and checking taxevasion to cutting cost of remittances and market access forkey drugs. On the sidelines of the Summit, Modi will have bilateralmeeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and attend a BRICSleaders’ meet. A number of other bilaterals are beingfinalised, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of ExternalAffairs Sujatha Mehta told reporters. She said issues like global tax reform, climate friendlyfinancing and market access for antibiotics are some of theissues likely to be discussed at the meetings. Niti AyogVice Chairman Arvind Panagariya is India’s sherpa for the G-20and some of the issues were already discussed in the run up tothe summit. Mehta said there will be deliberations on containingterror financing at the G 20 summit. There are likely to be detailed deliberations on automaticexchange of tax information at G-20, besides discussion onways to tackle slowdown of the global economy. India hasalready agreed to the Automatic Exchange of InformationConvention of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organisationof around 35 countries. MORE PTI MPBSKSK