The high-profile trade mission led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez arrived in Vietnam November 4 to seek ways help U.S. companies gain more access into Vietnam’s key sectors while the new WTO member country is proposing the lift of monitoring mechanism, state media said Tuesday.
The first-ever trip by the U.S. Department and Ford Motor, Dow Chemical, aluminium firm Alcoa and Northwest Airlines is aimed to boost their operations and expand their presence in banking, financial, oil and gas industry, aviation and service distribution in Vietnam in a bid to narrow trade deficit, Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army) newspaper said.
The U.S. trade mission held talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and State President Nguyen Minh Triet in hope of pushing Vietnam to open wider gates for the domestic fields such as finance, banking and service distributions, which are considered the hot cakes.
“The U.S. companies want to have wider access to move faster into Vietnam,” said Gutierrez.
However, under the WTO commitments, Vietnam will gradually open its service distribution sector to foreign investors from 2009, and the banking sector from 2010.
“US exporters of goods and services to Vietnam are not yet enjoying the balance of market access opportunities that was promised when the (bilateral deal) was signed,” Gutierrez noted.
“The U.S. will boost its exports to Vietnam in the coming time, and the bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and the U.S. is in only the initial phase,” Gutierrez noted at the press conference.
State President Triet proposed that the U.S. Commerce Secretary be supportive of persuading the White House to lift the apparel monitoring mechanism.
PM Dung said earlier that he strongly believes this visit will help promote bilateral cooperation in all fields especially in trade and investment.
Since the U.S. and Vietnam signed a bilateral trade agreement in 2001, two-way trade between the U.S. and Vietnam has increased to $9.7 billion in 2006 from $1.5 billion.
The bilateral trade is expected to reach $10 billion and $11 billion this year and hit $12 billion next year.
Under the WTO commitments, Vietnam will step by step cut its more than 10,000 import tariffs to open more economy to foreigners. Next year, Vietnam will slash roughly 500 import duties. (Local sources)
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