Vietnam Expects WTO's Ticket in H1 2006: President Tran Duc Luong

Vietnam looks forward to joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the first half of next year, said Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong with Reuters in sidelines of the conference of APEC summit in Korea last Friday.

 

"Vietnam's membership in the WTO will be in the best interests, not only of Vietnam, but of other APEC economies," Luong told the famous news agency.

 

At the conference before, Luong called for the support of all APEC members for Vietnam’s proposal to participate in the WTO. The top official stressed, “becoming a member of the worlds largest trade body is an important condition for Vietnam to successfully organize the 2006 APEC in Hanoi”.

 

Besides, the meeting between ASEAN leaders with US President Bush, Luong also call on the US administration to be flexible in negotiating with Vietnam on the country’s bid to join the Geneva-based trade body to wrap the talks up.

 

In a related development, Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai told visiting Deputy Secretary of Commerce David Sampson of the US that the US should speed up the WTO negotiation process.

 

Sampson reaffirmed the US Government’s commitment to fully support Vietnam’s admission to the WTO. Earlier, he said that the process must be in line with transparent trade principles and complete BTA execution.

 

Currently, besides Vietnam, merely Russia has yet to join the WTO.

 

Vietnam applied to join the WTO in 1995 and initially targeted to hit the objective at the WTO’s sixth Ministerial Meeting to be held in Hong Kong in December this year.

 

To date, Vietnam has wrapped up WTO talks with 23 partners among the total of 28 partners. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese government has also decided not to set any other deadlines for the WTO’s bid.