EU gives Vietnam WTO lift

The deal with EU, which is the nation’s largest trading partner, will boost Vietnam’s drive to join the world’s largest trade institution by its self imposed deadline of 2005.
The deal covers numerous commitments Vietnam will have to fulfill in trade and service sectors when the country accedes to the WTO.
The average tariff level that Vietnam will apply is around 16 per cent for industrial goods, 22 per cent for fishery products and 24 per cent for agricultural commodities.
As the result, Vietnam will have to further open its market, accelerate reforms and ensure transparency.

Vietnam will also meet commitments in a range of service sectors including transport, financial services, postal and courier, construction, distribution, environmental, professional and other business services, telecommunications and tourism.

However, in the sensitive fields of telecommunication and tourism, the two sides have reached conscious commitments.

Under the deal, the EU will allow Vietnam’s companies to organise direct tours to Europe while Vietnam will open the hotel and restaurant sector for EU businesses.

In the telecommunication sector, EU companies will be allowed to take a 30 per cent (share??) in joint ventures.

Garment and textile quota measures, which Vietnam hopes will finish when it joins the WTO in 2005, were not included in the EU deal. Vietnam, instead, will need to negotiate bilaterally with each EU country.

In a joint press conference held last week after the conclusion ceremony, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said : “There is bilateral reconciliation and we have made great step closer to each other. The deal will help improving EU businesses’ access to the Vietnamese market and in the meantime demonstrate our EU values to help Vietnam to integrate the world economy.”

Vietnam’s Minister of Trade Truong Dinh Tuyen said his nation’s commitments within the EU deal were bigger than those in bilateral trade agreement with the US.

Tuyen stressed that the EU deal would pave the way for Vietnam to negotiate with other partners.

Vietnam is negotiating bilateral market access deals with major WTO members including the US, Japan, China, Canada and Australia.

Vietnam reached its first bilateral WTO access agreements with Chile and Cuba last month.

The EU and Vietnam traded goods worth around 6.4 billion euros last year, of which 4.7 billion euros were imports from Vietnam.