3:26:37 PM | 7/8/2005
The Vietnamese government expects that those countries who have announced their assistance for Vietnam's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) will follow through with supportive actions.
Spokesman of Vietnam Foreign Ministry Le Dzung made the statement at a regular press briefing in Hanoi yesterday.
Vietnam is striving to join the WTO as soon as possible, the diplomat reaffirmed, while answering a correspondent's question on the possibility of Vietnam's admission to the global trade watch body by the end of this year.
Dzung said that whether Vietnam will join the organization sooner or later will be mainly decided by the results of the multilateral and bilateral talks. Vietnam hopes that its partners will show their goodwill, he added.
Vietnam will participate in the 10th round of multilateral talks in Geneva in May, and still has to conduct bilateral negotiations with 21 other partners, the spokesman revealed. Some recent rounds of bilateral talks have yielded positive results, he said.
Vietnam applied to join the Geneva-based global trade body in 1995. Along with the Southeast Asian country, another 24 nations including Russia are also negotiating to participate in the WTO.
Since last April, Vietnam has held bilateral negotiations with some 20 WTO member countries. It has completed talks with seven, namely Cuba (on Jun 15, 2004), Chile (Aug 22, 2004), the EU (Oct 9, 2004), Argentina (Nov 12, 2004), Brazil (Nov 16, 2004), Singapore (Nov 25, 2004), and Uruguay (Apr 14, 2005).
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