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EU envoy expects FTA talks with Vietnam to start soon
The ambassador and head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Vietnam, Franz Jessen, believes negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) with Vietnam will begin soon, as the two sides have put their efforts on this and expansion of relations.
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The ambassador and head of the European Union Delegation to Vietnam, Franz Jessen (C). |
Over the past year, the EU and Vietnam have had a number of discussions and tried to identify what to negotiate for the FTA, and that process was very close to completion, Jessen told reporters in HCMC on Tuesday.
Both EU and Vietnam have prepared their intensions for what to go with such negotiations.
Matthias Dühn of the European Chamber of Commence in Vietnam (EuroCham) said Vietnam had given a political signal that it was ready for launch of formal FTA negotiations with the EU as soon as the technical work had been completed.
The executive director of EuroCham said at the “Vietnam-EU Relations: Achievements and Prospects until 2015” luncheon in HCMC on Tuesday that the EU and Vietnam still needed to agree in technical talks on the common framework of the agreement before the formal launch of negotiations.
The framework involves issues including the market economy status and generalized system of preferences (GSP) for Vietnam, among others. These issues needed constructive discussions for the two sides to move forward to the FTA talks, Jessen told reporters before he dialogued with representatives of local and foreign companies at the EuroCham luncheon.
Jessen said senior officials were keen to have contacts in the next few weeks to see how they would proceed with necessary preparations. As head of the EU delegation to Vietnam, Jessen said he would do what he could to ensure EU-Vietnam trade would increase at a high rate, adding such are his priorities during his office term here in the country.
The EU is now a major export market for Vietnam and Jessen quoted Vietnamese statistics as saying that exports from Vietnam to the EU last year grew over 45% year-on-year to around US$16.5 billion. If this trend continues, the EU will surpass the United States to become the biggest export market for Vietnam.
Jessen credited the whopping export growth to the fact that the two economies were complementary, as many made-in-Vietnam goods exported to the EU were not produced in Europe, while the EU exports to Vietnam many products that are not made here.
The EU ambassador said one of the ways to accelerate the EU-Vietnam trade was to remove unnecessary market restrictions, and that the 45% rise in Vietnamese exports to the EU last year proved that this bloc was very open and a big market for Vietnamese products.
He said there had been good developments in the EU-Vietnam relations and this was one of the reasons for the two sides to kick off FTA negotiations. The FTA would benefit both sides, particularly creating more market opportunities for Vietnamese companies.
Jean Jacques Bouflet, head of the trade section at the EU Delegation to Vietnam, said the deadline for the EU-Vietnam FTA to come into force would be January 2015, when the ASEAN Economic Community is already formed as visioned.
Bouflet told reporters that the FTA meant not only the reduction in import tariffs but also the confidence of investors and therefore the FTA brings win-win benefits to both sides.
Dühn of EuroCham remarked at the luncheon opening that the EU was seeking to broaden and diversify its relationship with Vietnam, beyond development co-operation and trade, to increased political cooperation on issues of global concern.
“The EU works closely with Vietnam under the framework of the Cooperation Agreement to ensure an effective environment for trade and investment relations. Relations will soon be further strengthened through the new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) which will extend the areas of cooperation,” Dühn said.
The EU and Vietnam were expected to sign the new PCA this year to replace the cooperation agreement signed in 1995, Jessen told reporters.
Also on Tuesday, the EU ambassador met with leaders of HCMC as part of his business trip to this economic hub of Vietnam, about four months after he came to Vietnam.
vietnamnet
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