EU, Vietnam Free Trade Pact In The Offing

The European Union and Vietnam have agreed to push for the completion of a pending free trade agreement (FTA) during meetings between European High Representative Catherine Ashton, and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh.

Following the initialing of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) in June 2012, FTA negotiations were started almost immediately.

Ashton said: "Implementation of the PCA will hopefully be complemented soon with an FTA, which will bring our bilateral relations to a new level."

"The FTA will increase opportunities for Vietnamese businesses, granting preferential market access for your exports to the EU. Negotiations are making good progress, although an acceleration of talks would be required to complete the FTA before the end of the year."

Dung also looked forward to the conclusion of negotiations on the FTA between the two sides, adding that there is a large potential for economic cooperation, and the signing of an FTA would help trade and investment to prosper.

The EU is already Vietnam's largest export market with exports valued at EUR21bn (USD28bn), representing 19 percent of Vietnam's total exports. Those exports increased by 28 percent from 2012 to 2013.

In 2007, the EU member states agreed to launch negotiations on a region-to-region FTA with ASEAN, but these were put on hold in 2009. In December 2009, the European Commission decided to pursue free trade talks with ASEAN countries – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – in a bilateral format, whilst preserving the strategic objective of a region-to-region FTA for a later date.

The EU has already completed trade negotiations with Singapore, and it was recently confirmed that talks are now underway with Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Source: Tax News