Guideline of Vietnam’s Free Trade Agreements for Agricultural and Processed Food Enterprises

22/02/2016

Time: February 2016 

By: Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade & Industry and Trade Informaiton Center

After becoming a member of World Trade Organization (WTO), Vietnam has tended to deeply integrate into the regional and global economies. Vietnam has attended in negotiation, sign and implementation of many bilateral and multilateral economy partnership agreement and  free trade agreement (FTA) in recent years, which brings huge opportunities and threats for domestic Vietnam companies, in general, and agricultural and processed food enterprises, in particular.

Joining these FTAs will enable Vietnam’s textile and agricultural - processed food products in being imposed preferential tariff when exporting, then developing the competitive abilities in the global market. In addition, it is also an opportunities for increasing the investment capital and local market share, together with reforming the structure and business strategy of Vietnam enterprises in order to meet the international standards, improve competitive abilities and pursue sustainable improvements. However, besides opportunities, Vietnam enterprises also have to face to challenge of intergration process. Because the recent years, tariff barriers for domestic good protection are reduced, the import countries will push the implementation of non-tariff barriers. It leads to challenges for the textile and agricultural - processed food products in importing process of Vietnam, in general, and of Hanoi, in particular.

In order to satisfy information needs of individuals and enterprises in integration process, Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade, and Industry and Trade Informaiton Center published the “Guideline of Vietnam’s Free Trade Agreements for Agricultural and Processed Food Enterprises” and “Guideline of Vietnam’s Free Trade Agreements for Textile Enterprises”

The content of 02 Guidelines contains basic information of 08 Free Trade Aggreement which is signed by Vietnam or in negotiation process such as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)… The focus of them is providing important information for textile and agricultural - processed food products, including tariff commitments, the procedure of certificate of origin, trade remedy measures, certificate of origin sample. Additionally, these guidelines provide some notes for relevant enterprises when entering FTAs in purpose of helping enterprises and managers understand overall of commitments in each FTAs mentioned. Moreover, these guidelines also give some assessments and recommendations for helping enterprises in actively exploiting all opportunities from FTAs has Vietnam as a member.

The Vietnamese version is attached here