Vietnam and the US officially inked in Washington DC June 21 a bilateral trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA) and additional five contracts worth over $1 billion, state media has reported on June 22.
TIFA was signed between Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia and Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Trade Nguyen Cam Tu with the witness of US Trade Minister Carlos Guitierez and visiting Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet.
The two sides, under the TIFA, will shortly set up a bilateral cooperation council headed by two ministers of the two countries. The council will be in charge of discussing big policies, orientations, and initiatives to boost Vietnam-US trade and investment ties as well as measures to solve economic obstacles including difficulties of enterprises of both sides.
TIFA, which is seen as a preparatory step toward the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two nations, is a mechanism to supervise the implementation of WTO commitments and the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).
The five new deals were reached between Chevron and State-owned Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), Microsoft and the Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam (Agribank), Microsoft and Finance Promotion Technology Corporation (FPT) and CMC, Motorola and State-run Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), and between SSA Marine and Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines).
While in Washington, Triet has met with Vietnamese-Americans, made a speech in front of 20 CEOs of US leading corporations, and visited the US Congress.
He called for more US investment into Vietnam’s hi-tech field and US’s fairer treatment for Vietnamese goods in line with WTO rules, hoped trade barriers between the two nations would be removed, and expressed his wish for many deeper and frank dialogues on human right issue to increase mutual understanding.
Triet also pledged to create more favorable conditions for US investors, further adjust its laws and raise the quality of human resources.
As mid-May of this year, the US has had 325 investment projects with total registered capital of $2.3 billion in Vietnam, accounting for 4.4 per cent of the total foreign direct investment project and 3.5 per cent in term of capital, and ranking eighth among 77 countries and territories in the world investing in Vietnam.
Taking into account the US investment via a third country the figure will be 396 projects worth over $4.7 billion, standing at sixth position, according to the latest statistics of the ministry.
Trade between Vietnam and the US reached nearly $9.7 billion in 2006, compared with nearly $8 billion in 2005. Vietnam exported around $8.56 billion worth of goods, much higher than $6.63 billion in 2005, and imported only around $1.1 billion from the foreign country, down from nearly $1.2 billion in 2005.
Vietnam mainly exports coffee, tea, footwear, crude oil, seafood, apparel, rice and furniture to the US, and imports cotton along with power-generating equipment, fertilizers, optical and photo equipment, and vehicles.
In Washington from June 18-19 the two countries held the annual meeting of the Vietnam-US Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Development within the framework of the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) to review the bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation during the 2006-07 period and the five-year (2001-06) implementation of the BTA.
They also discussed at the meeting various areas such as trade in goods, intellectual property rights, services, investment and the improvement of the legal environment in Vietnam.
Washington DC is the second leg of Triet’s visit to the US after New York. (Local sources)
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