APEC 2006: Motivation for Vietnam's WTO Accession

Vietnam plays host to APEC 2006 right when the country’s negotiations for an accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) come to the finish. Observers say that it is an opportunity for Vietnam to combine its integration efforts, achieving two major targets of hosting the 14^th APEC summit successfully and joining WTO. In his recent interview with the press, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan affirmed that despite not playing a decisive role, the 2006 APEC summit had a relationship with Vietnam’s upcoming WTO accession. The hosting of the summit may act as a motivation for Vietnam to accelerate its WTO bid.

According to experts, having chosen to host the event, Vietnam has won much credit from APEC member countries. This is a pride and honour for Vietnam, depicting its biggest contribution to the development of APEC and the increased image and position of Vietnam in the regional and the international arenas. This is an expression of Vietnam’s determination to boost its international integration and join the settlement of urgent issues in the region and the world. The event is more meaningful as also in 2006, Vietnam has concentrated on accelerating negotiations for its WTO accession.

 

APEC 2006 (APEC 14) is considered as the biggest international event hosted by Vietnam so far, with a focus on the APEC summit week in Hanoi from November 12-19. The 2006 APEC summit is themed ‘Towards a Dynamic Community for Sustainable Development and Prosperity.’ Among sub-themes in the summit’s agenda, the global trade liberalisation initiated at the Doha Round and halfway review of trade liberalisation within APEC (in accordance with the roadmap envisaged by the Bogor summit in 1995), as well as orientations for another half, towards a complete liberalisation among APEC member economies, will be discussed.

 

These targets coincide with WTO’s targets of finishing early the Doha Round, removing all barriers to free trade in the world. Major members of WTO are also strong economies in APEC. Therefore, forums within APEC 2006, for Vietnam, will offer an opportunity to call for support and flexibility in the country’s negotiations with other WTO member countries, especially the US, which has not finished bilateral negotiations with Vietnam yet.

 

Apart from offering benefits from trade and investment liberalisation, APEC has set up many enterprise support organisations, such as the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), consists of leaders of many firms to provide advisory services for leaders of APEC economies. Within APEC 2006, Vietnamese enterprises will have opportunities to exchange and dialogue directly with partners from APEC economies. Via these forums, members of ABAC will propose some co-operation projects and ideas to help Vietnamese enterprises during international economic integration. Accordingly, Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises will be able to get access to financial sources and markets. Also, Vietnamese enterprises will benefit from a boost of development and enterprise credit rating, the building of an APEC enterprise network, and a promotion of alliance between small and medium-sized with trans-national and multinational groups. This is also a motivation for Vietnamese enterprises to settle obstacles to their readiness for Vietnam’s WTO accession.

 

Having joined APEC nine years ago, Vietnam has actively and effectively taken part in activities within the forum. With its role as host of the 2006 APEC summit, Vietnam has an opportunity to prove its role and prestige to become a member of the biggest multilateral trade organisation in the world, the WTO.                                                                          

 

FedEx is always an accompanist of meetings and is an official sponsor for the 2006 APEC summit in Vietnam. Therefore, we hope that Vietnam will issue open and transparent policies for trade services, including air express transportation services. This may boost the development of local enterprises, helping them access foreign markets more quickly and effectively and increasing potential investors’ awareness of advantages of Vietnam. FedEx supports Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This was expressed with a visit to the US by a delegation of the Vietnamese National Assembly, led by vice chairman Nguyen Van Yeu. During their stay, Vietnamese officials held a meeting with representatives from 40 US firms, including FedEx, Boeing, Ford, Daimler, Motorola and AIG under a theme: ‘Working together for Vietnam to become a WTO member.’

 

At the meeting, senior lawyer T. Jame Minn II, representative of FedEx gave a brief introduction of FedEx’s activities in Vietnam. In Geneva, representatives from FedEx met directly with a delegation of Vietnamese negotiators to express the firm’s support for Vietnam’s WTO bid. Also, FedEx is one of three US firms within the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) to attend the 2006 APEC summit. FedEx wishes that Vietnam would allow foreign investors to open their wholly-owned enterprises in express transportation and other services to promote the development of import and export activities of countries, including Vietnam.

 

A concern in the coming time when Vietnam joins WTO is that Vietnamese textiles and apparels will have to compete with products of rivals from leading exporting countries and territories in the world such as China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Republic of Korea.

Before opportunities and challenges from international integration, Viet Tien has gradually developed its ‘product and market’ strategies throughout 2010 on a basis of upgrading and renewing technology and equipment, reorganising production, developing human resources, improving management capability and promoting marketing and post-sale services.

 

Customers from Japan, the US and some EU countries, will certainly know about Viet Tien’s competitiveness via the ISO 9001 – 2000 quality management system, the SA 8000 (Social Accountability 8000) system, modern equipment and technology. This is an important basis for us to win large contracts. At the same time, Viet Tien developed a business motto ‘Prestige, quality and contract implementation progress’ in late 2005. In order to diversify products, we have invested in Vee Sendy fashion and have recorded certain achievements. This is our business strategy at threshold of international economic integration as product diversification is to increase competitiveness.

 

VISSAN is a leading Vietnamese trademark for processed food. VISSAN products have been voted as Vietnamese high quality goods for years. For maintaining and developing business activities, and improving value of trademark in a context of tougher competition and deeper integration into the world economy, VISSAN has made great efforts to overcome difficulties, building and implementing suitable solutions. VISSAN is now a supplier of safe fresh meat and food. Having followed a safe food selling model, VISSAN has created a significantly comparative advantage. Also, the company has always observed regulations on food hygiene and safety, increasing productivity to meet the market’s increased demand. Products of VISSAN have been highly appreciated by consumers as they can meet the demand of various consumers in modern life. 

 

At present, food hygiene and safety has become an urgent issue as the market is full of unsafe food. VISSAN is a pioneering enterprise in producing clean and safe food products, and promoting the education of consumers of using safe food. However, the State should take measures to control slaughtering activities. In particular, slaughtering places should be re-organised under the management of the State.

There should be clear legal corridor for airline agents: Do Xuan Quang, director of the Vector International Airline Service Company 

So far in Vietnam, airline agents have not been clarified legally yet. In the Civil Aviation Law, there are not articles about airline agent activities while the Maritime Law has a chapter about maritime agent business. This is a shortcoming within Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Law.

Also, customs agencies in Vietnamese airports have accepted bills of airlines only. As a result, it is difficult for agents to collect goods. In fact, good services in collecting goods will help exporters save money by reducing transportation costs, thus helping them increase their competitiveness. The collection of goods has been implemented effectively for a long time in maritime transportation.

 

Regulations on express transportation and post services are unclear. In fact, express transportation services of foreign firms, such as TNT, DHL, FedEx and UPS are not similar to parcel and letter sending services.

 

In recent years, many projects have been carried out to build luxurious residential areas in Vietnam in general and Ho Chi Minh City in particular. The city is targeting foreign businessmen and people in Vietnam with stable incomes for leasing and selling houses. However, due to many subjective and objective reasons including difficulties due to a lack of complete infrastructure facilities, ups and downs of world gold prices, and hesitation of banks in providing loans for those who want to buy houses and constraints in policies towards overseas Vietnam as potential customers, the market of luxurious residential areas has seen a fall.

 

Recently, there have been positive signs as banks have agreed to provide long-term loans for people to buy houses on a hire purchase basis. With Vietnam becoming a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) soon, the State should have more open regulations on house ownership for overseas Vietnamese. This may boost the development of the market of luxurious residential areas in Vietnam.