EU Becomes Vietnam's Largest Export Market in 2008
The European Union (EU) reportedly imported EUR8.3 billion (US$12.2 billion) worth of products from Vietnam in 2008, becoming the largest export market of Vietnam, compared to the U.S.’s imports of US$11.86 billion.
Footwear was Vietnam’s biggest cash earner with EUR2.094 billion, up 6.4 per cent against 2007, said Trade Counselor of the European Commission Delegation to Vietnam, Antonio Berenguer at press briefing in Hanoi May 29, citing data of the EC Statistical Office (Eurostat).
Speaking at the briefing, Ambassador Sean Doyle, head of the EC delegation to Vietnam, said that the EU wants to ink the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Vietnam after the EU and ASEAN had not reached a final agreement for the two-year negotiations.
The EU and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade have recently discussed technical issues relating to FTA which will benefit Vietnamese exports very much as up to 60 per cent of Vietnam’s exports to the EU now bear high tax rates, noted the ambassador.
The MOIT forecast that goods shipments to the EU will hit US$22.7 billion between 2009 and 2010.
Vietnam’s key exports to the EU market include footwear, apparel, furniture, seafood and the ASEAN country buys machinery, medicine, materials for apparel industry, steel and fertilizer. (Youth, MoIT)
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