EU negotiations conclude for Vietnam’s WTO accession

HCM-CITY, Vietnam (October 12) -The long wait for Vietnam’s accession to the WTO has just been cut short yesterday with a successful bilateral deal with the EU, Vietnam’s largest trading partner. EC President Romano Prodi and Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy left Vietnam yesterday afternoon after wrapping up a bilateral agreement between Vietnam and the EU on the road to WTO accession. The deal covers commitments on behalf of Vietnam in goods and services with accession, and rests upon a framework that further opens Vietnam’s market, while reflecting Vietnam’s status as a low income developing country. Regarding financial services, Mr Lamy said all requirements by the EU were accepted by Vietnam, except the establishment of foreign branches in insurance. In the banking sector, Vietnamese requirements focused on technical issues rather than on the market access, such as minimum capital levels of a foreign owned bank and capital mobilisation in local currency VND. This bilateral EU deal has no real reflection on pending anti-dumping suits: it is however, a step towards seeing the Vietnamese economy in a different light.