Marantis upbeat about the bright trade horizon

Mr Demetrios Marantis

Marantis shared some views about the potential for US-Vietnam trade and investment relations and the benefits such a new regional agreement will bring for the two countries in the future.

The TPP is a new regional initiative of some countries in the Asia-Pacific region. What is the US’ standpoint?

The most important part in a new National Export Initiative of the United States is the Asia-Pacific region, because for us and for you, Asia-Pacific is the centre of the world. So, President Obama asked us to really focus our trade policies and initiatives in the region. We will do that in many ways, by creating new regional initiatives in Asia-Pacific as well as working to strengthen bilateral relationship with key countries in the region, especially Vietnam.

Regionally, we will work with Vietnam and other countries to focus on initiatives that can help businesses through out the region trade more quickly, easily and cheaply, make it easier for countries to sell their services in the region or make it better for businesses to involve in the global supply chain.

Other big initiatives that President Obama wants to focus on is something called the TPP. It is a regional trade agreement that begins with eight countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the US, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, Brunei and Peru. It is really exciting in the region wide because of something very new and very different.

It is unlike our two countries and any countries in the region ever done before, because what we are trying to do is to take advantages of the competitive dynamic of the Asia-Pacific region in a way that really benefit all of our countries.

So what benefits that the US and Vietnam have by being the first member countries negotiating for this agreement?

What is really exciting about this agreement for the US and Vietnam is that we can work together at the very beginning to shape the rules of what this agreement will look like. When Vietnam joined the WTO three years ago, the rules were already set many years before and Vietnam did not actually have any opportunities to shape the rules.

In this case of the TPP, Vietnam and the US will be able to work together to shape the rules of the agreement that will hopefully in the years to come include the entire Asia-Pacific region.

Another thing that is exciting in the TPP is that it will help to reinforce our competitive strengths. For Vietnam, you have done such a great job in the past few years by implementing your commitments in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and bilateral commitments with the US as well.

It is really an amazing example that Vietnam is setting for different countries in the region about how to negotiate, conclude and implement trade agreements. You have done a better job than most countries have and you should be congratulated for all of your hard works.

Vietnam is considered as the US’s next export market in Obama’s new export initiatives. What will the US do to accelerate its exports to Vietnam?

One of the things we are trying to do is to increase US exports in the Asia-Pacific region generally. Vietnam is obviously an important export market for US goods. But what we are trying to do is to work with other countries in the region to enhance competitiveness of the region, as that will help increase not only their exports to the US but also exports to Vietnam. So as you work on initiatives by strengthening partnership and on developing the region, that will help the US exporters as well as the Vietnamese exporters too much.

And what about the prospects of the US’s investment in Vietnam this year?

With respect to investment, it is again amazing that the US is now the biggest foreign investor in Vietnam. That is because we are so much interested in Vietnam.

Why? Because again Vietnam has adopted policies to make the country a very attractive destination for foreign investment. The US-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement was the first step, the WTO is the second step and now as we look toward the future working on initiatives gathered on the TPP, that will further stamp Vietnam as one of the countries in the region so attractive.