Vietnam will face severe competition in 2014 due to reduced prices in the world’s rice market as Thailand keeps lowering its selling price and competition between exporters in Asia still remains, according to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA).  At a meeting to implement a working 2014 rice production plan held in Ho Chi Minh City on January 9, the VFA warned that domestic products now have to vie with Thai fragrant and white rice and Indian basmati, parboiled and broken rice. 

Vietnamese seafood exporters, especially pangasius processors and exporters, may face new challenges in exporting their products to the US next year if a new law takes effect, said a senior trade official at a recent seminar in Ho Chi Minh City.

The advantages Vietnam will enjoy once the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) become effective were discussed in detail at a seminar held in Hanoi on January 8.  The event was jointly organised by the Vietnam Peace and Development Fund and the Vietnam Economics Times.  Economic experts and researchers said that the TPP is a great opportunity for Vietnam and the country’s participation in the pact fits the Party and State’s strategy for promoting international integration and restructuring the economy. 

(VOV) - The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) warns the seafood inspection legislation the US Government is considering risk negatively affecting Vietnam’s seafood export businesses. The MARD’s surveys of export businesses themselves suggest the industry is concerned about the likely impacts of the legislation. If enacted, Vietnam’s fish producing, processing, and packaging procedures would need to mimic their American equivalents. Vietnamese tra fish imports might be halted.

(VOV) - Vietnam is negotiating key free trade agreements (FTAs) with big partners, and once these deals are signed, they will put mounting pressure on the agricultural sector. Trade deals with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) partners, the European Union, and the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus offer advantages and pose challenges to Vietnamese agriculture. Foreign agricultural products will flood the Vietnamese market in a couple of years, putting domestic products at a disadvantage.

GENEVA – Russia has filed its first trade dispute before the World Trade Organization, complaining about the European Union’s anti-dumping duties. The World Trade Organization says the dispute is the first to be initiated by Russia since it became a full member of the Geneva-based WTO in August 2012. In a statement Monday, the WTO said Russia is seeking consultations with the EU over its anti-dumping duties on Russian steel products and ammonium nitrate, which is mainly used in fertilizer.

HANOI, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoIT) recently issued a circular restricting rights of foreign-invested companies in Vietnam on export and import of certain commodities, including crude oil. Under the circular, companies with foreign direct investment ( FDI) are not allowed to export crude oil and other kinds of oil obtained from bituminous minerals, the ministry said on its website on Tuesday.

In the modern era, US Republicans have espoused free trade — and FTAs — as an extension of their domestic goals to foster vigorous market competition and limit government intervention on behalf of favoured protectionist interests.

This article revisits the role of the WTO following last month's breakthrough in Bali, focusing on posited raisons d'etre, channels of influence and issues at the forefront recently.

(VOV) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade has updated the public on its latest international cooperation efforts and progress in ongoing trade agreement negotiations. It has completed the final draft on international economic integration outlook towards 2020, including the “trade and services” and “investment” chapters of the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (AJCEP) as well as the necessary preparations for signing the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement.