When the agreement is approved, Viet Nam's
export turnover to the EU is expected to increase at an average 4 per cent year
as tariffs on most products exported to the EU would gradually drop to zero
HA
NOI (VNS)
— Small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) are still not prepared for the Viet Nam – EU Free Trade Agreement that
is expected to be signed this October, officials warned.
Deputy
Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, Vo Tri Thanh said,
though the date is fast approaching, SMEs are not really prepared for the
bilateral agreement.
Echoing
Thanh, Deputy Director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT)'s European
Market Department, Tran Ngoc Quan said that big enterprises are well aware of
the agreement as they have taken active part in the negotiations. However, that
does not hold true with SMEs.
Quan
said that currently, MoIT makes public all information about the agreement to
business associations, which then introduces these to its members. However,
many SMEs are not association members, due to which they do not have updated
information about the agreement.
To make
it easy for SMEs to access the information, MoIT is trying to publish all the
details of the agreement on its website, Quan said.
The
SMEs will be caught napping on the EU market unless they actively prepare for
the integration right now, Quan warned.
According
to MoIT, Vietnamese firms should spend more time studying EU requirements and
adjust their product and production processes to comply with such requirements.
The reason for that is the EU imposes many trade regulations to protect human
health and safety, animal and plant life, and health and the environment.
These
include REACH, the European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe
uses, FLEGT or Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade aiming to reduce
illegal logging, and IUU, the regulation against illegal fishing.
Many
experts believe that the Viet Nam-EU FTA is one of Viet Nam's most important
agreements with other countries as key export staples of footwear, garments and
textiles, coffee, along with seafood and wood products are exported mainly to
the EU, with billions of dollars of annual turnover each.
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
in Singapore since 1994.
No comments:
Post a Comment