The 4th Ministerial-level FTA negotiation round between Vietnam and Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia was held on February 11 – 14, 2014 in Da Nang city, Vietnam, under the chairmanship of Minister Vu Huy Hoang and Minister in charge for Trade of Asia – Europe Economic Committee, Andrei A. Slepnev.

Earlier, the 4th technical negotiation session was organized on December 9th – 13th, 2013 in Da Nang, Vietnam, under the chairmanship of Heads of Negotiation Delegations, Mr. Dang Hoang Hai, Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam and Mr. Andrei V. Tochin, Asia – Europe Economic Committee.

Implementing guidance from Ministers and Heads of Negotiation Delegations on the goal of text finalization by end of 2013, Working Groups (Trade in goods; Commerce safeguard; Rule of origin; Customs management and Trade facilitation; TBT, SPS; Service, Investment and personal movement; Intellectual property right; Government procurement and Institution and Legislation) made their most efforts and flexibility to basically conclude the Chapters’ wording at this negotiation round.

In cooperative and open-minded spirit, with mutual benefit balancing, Delegations from both sides had basically reached consensus on Agreement’s wording. Thus, the target on text concluding by end of 2013 had been fulfilled, setting a base for finalizing the Agreement by end 2014.

Two sides agreed to promote internal consultation in all forms so that to accelerate negotiation at the 5th round to be scheduled from March 31st to April 4th, 2014 in Republic of Kazakhstan.

Source: MOIT

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