Vietnam signs FTA with EEU

This is the second FTA that Vietnam signed in May. Earlier, the country concluded a trade pact with South Korea.

The new trade deal is a comprehensive and highly committed one which covers trade in goods and services, investment, intellectual property, food hygiene and safety, origin regulations, custom facilitation, technical barriers to trade, competition, legality and institution among others.

Vietnamese business will have a good chance to expand exports markets as the EEU will eliminate tariffs imposed on some of the country’s key export items such as garments.

With total population of about 175 million and a GDP of $2.5 trillion, the agreement will play an important role in the growth of a number of former Soviet states towards a uniformed economic space.

The FTA is expected to boost Vietnam’s exports, including farm produce, textile and garment, timber and processing products to these countries.

Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will reduce import tariffs against all Vietnamese aquaculture products to zero.

According to the union’s preliminary assessment, the agreement will help raise the two-way trade value to $10-12 billion by 2020 from $4 billion last year.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung said Viet Nam, as a dynamic member of ASEAN, will try its best to boost cooperation between the Union and ASEAN, a 600 million-strong single market with a GDP of about $2.5 trillion.

Russian prime minister Medvedev said that the agreement would help expand economic growth in each country and accelerate trade and investment exchanges among the signatories. (SH)

Fibre2fashion News Desk – India