The statue of Tagore is a gift from the Indian Government to Vietnam.
Addressing the ceremony, Secretary of the Bac Ninh Party Committee Nguyen Anh Tuan highlighted the traditional friendship of Vietnam and India that takes root in the cultural and religious exchanges more than 2,000 years ago and was fostered by President Ho Chi Minh and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
He said over the past more than 50 years, India has been a reliable partner that regularly expresses its support of Vietnam’s development path and policies at many regional and international forums.
The cooperation between the two countries have reaped many important achievements not only in politics-diplomacy but also in economics and defence-security, turning them into reliable and important partners of each other, matching their comprehensive strategic partnership, Tuan said.
He stressed that the statue of the great Indian poet is the first placed at the International Friendship Park of Bac Ninh, which the province builds to honour the cooperation and friendship between the province and foreign countries.
Minister S. Jaishankar thanked the government and people of Bac Ninh for holding the ceremony to inaugurate the statue of Tagore. He said he was surprised by Vietnamese people’s admiration for the Indian poet whose works are widely known in Vietnam and even introduced in Vietnam’s school textbook.
He recalled that Indian monks had come to Luy Lau in Bac Ninh to teach Buddhism in the ancient time, turning it into a famous Buddhism centre in Vietnam, which constitutes a special spiritual and cultural bond between India and Bac Ninh.
After the ceremony, the Indian minister and Bac Ninh leaders planted trees at the park and visited Phat Tich Pagoda in Tien Du district.
