VTFA - New Impetus for Trade facilitation

VTFA was established to engage in formal, consultative relationships, with well-organised, results-oriented participation by business associations and domestic and foreign invested companies with the General Department of Vietnam Customs and other governmental agencies. In cooperation with USAID, VCCI, and other business associations in the VTFA, we want to share international best practices, including more than 25 years experience based on the US Customs Modernisation Act of 1993, implementing regulations for the North American Free Trade Agreement and other FTAs, and the especially the “Commercial Operations Advisory Committee to the US Customs” (COAC).

 

USAID’s support for this AmCham and VCCI-led Alliance represents a new model for delivery of our support for implementation of the TFA, in terms of being rooted in real, substantive engagement with the business community in order to inform the prioritization and implementation of reforms so that they deliver real development and business results.

 

This private sector led approach to trade facilitation reform is not something we have done before and based on your pioneering experience with this approach, we intend to apply it more broadly to our trade programming in the many developing countries where we are supporting the implementation of the TFA.

 

Today, trade facilitation has become a trend and practice on a global scale. Every year each nation can follow its ranking of trade facilitation index at the prestigious economic forum in the world like ranking in the sports Olympiads.

 

The Ease of Doing Business 2015 Rank for Vietnam is 78 out of 189 economies. According to the survey of the World Bank, Vietnam’s ranking in Trade Facilitation, especially, Vietnam’s Trading across Borders (TBA) ranking in 2013 is 74 out of the 185 global economies surveyed and for Vietnam’s Logistics Performance Index, Vietnam ranks 53 out of 155 countries in the survey. This is clearly a very modest figure that shows the gap to be bridged if Vietnam wants to fall into the group of top 50 ranking in the indexes, or to be comparable with frontier countries. Related agencies of government, business and industry associations should work together and coordinate efforts to improve the regulatory environment, infrastructure and institutional capacity in order to work toward this target. We expect our project can suggest roadmaps and measures to improve the indexes

We believe that through this project, we will gain more of the resources needed and enlist international cooperation, thereby contributing to the capacity building of the related stakeholders, introducing the models and best practices from other economies in the world in terms of trade facilitation and, thereby helping to bring about the tangible benefits foreseen. A regular consultations mechanism between business and public authorities such as customs, when properly established and developed, will effectively contribute to transparency, integrity of the public management system, and it also serves as feedback that helps relevant agencies to regulate their internal systems, to be adaptable to the external business environment. This, in turn, paves the way for further partnership among stakeholders for mutual benefits.