HCMC - Business associations and companies can contribute to Vietnam’s negotiations over free trade agreements (FTA) with partners, said economic experts last week.
“Enterprises will be those impacted by free trade agreements, so business associations will be given a part to play in the process of FTA negotiations in the near future,” said Vo Tri Thanh, vice president of the Central Institute for Economic Management, at a workshop on EU-Vietnam Multilateral Trade Assistance Project III’s research.
The research has been done to assess how free trade agreements will impact on Vietnam’s economy via trade statistics. It is aimed at informing in advance Vietnam’s trade negotiators and policymakers of probable consequences of FTAs.
The research also identifies the impact and efficiency of several FTAs, including ASEAN-Korea, ASEAN-India, ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand, AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area), ASEAN-China and ASEAN-Japan. Although the business community will be affected much by FTAs, it seems to be not consulted in the negotiation process. Many enterprises do not have in-depth knowledge about FTAs and commitments in them, Thanh added. Therefore, the workshop was believed to help businesses.
Bui Truong Giang of the Vietnam Institute of Economics said the role of trade associations was very important since they represented enterprises in many industries but so far their voice had been little heard.
Experts said domestic enterprises should also gain access to information to know how FTAs would affect so as to choose key markets for their exports and potentially advantageous industries for investment.
According to MUTRAP III project’s research, the full impacts would be felt in 2015-2021 when all FTAs with Vietnam’s involvement are fully implemented. According to quantitative findings in the research, for both partial and full implementation, estimated gains are largest for FTAs with Korea and Japan, and AFTA.
