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Pact with Japan seen as opportunity for exporters
Though Japan ranks as one of the countries with the strongest protection for their agricultural products, Vietnam still see benefits from the Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, said a senior official yesterday.
Le Trieu Dung, from the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Multilateral Trade Policy Department, said that the biggest advantage that the agreement would bring would be preferences for farm produce and garments and textiles, as Japan vowed to remove taxes for 83.8% of the commercial value of Vietnamese agricultural products within 10 years, Japan’s highest rate in any ASEAN country.
On Wednesday, Japanese Parliament approved the agreement, so in about two or three months, farm products, including shrimp, crabs, durian, lychees and honey, would see preferential treatment compared with the same items exported to Japan from other ASEAN countries, said Dung.
Of the 30 Vietnamese farm products exported to Japan that earn the highest revenues, 23 will enjoy no tariffs for a maximum of 10 years.
Though Japan had never committed to cutting taxes on rice imports, Vietnamese enterprises could keep exporting to the market under the normal trade conditions, said Dung.
Japan had also signed similar agreements with Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, said Dung, adding that ‘the agreement in Vietnam came at the right time’.
According to the commitments, as many as 2,586 tax lines would be removed immediately after the enactment of the VJEPA, accounting for 28% of a total of 9,390 lines committed. After 10 years (in 2019), an additional 3,717 tariff lines would be scrapped, bringing the total to 6,302 lines or 67% of the committed lines.
On the contrary, within 10 years, Vietnam will apply a nil % tax on 87% of commodities exported from Japan to Vietnam. Vietnam will cut and remove more than 8,873 tax lines at the end of the roadmap (in 2025), of some 96% of the total tax lines to be applied. Vietnam will still protect products and only import those necessary for domestic investment and production, especially machinery, equipment and technology.
VietNamNet, vietnamnews
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