After Vietnam and the US ended an important talks round on Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on May 13, 2006, Bui Kien Thanh, senior advisor to the Vietnamese Government gave his views on the event. The question is whether Vietnam can develop strongly enough for international economic integration or not.
What do you think about long and difficult talks process between Vietnam and the US on Vietnam’s WTO bid?
I feel that even though the two countries have ended talks on Vietnam’s WTO bid Vietnam was too anxious for WTO accession. Watching the previous talks rounds, the US took a dominant position. What I worry much is Vietnam has yet to get prepared to receive opportunities and cope with challenges of the organisation accession.
Do you think challenges will be bigger than opportunities?
There are more worries than good points. We are joyful as we will have opportunities to expand markets and gain higher revenues. However, who will the benefits belong to? For example, export revenues from textiles and garments go to joint ventures or foreign-owned companies. Vietnamese enterprises are subcontractors. As a result, benefits will mainly go to foreign organisations. We worry about the future of Vietnamese enterprises after foreign giants enter the Vietnamese market as the local enterprises’ competitiveness is not high enough for the opening of the market.
We already know that competition will become fiercer after the accession to WTO. What is the biggest challenge?
At present, our enterprises still face many constraints in many economic sectors. We have 12 years to adapt ourselves with the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Organisation. Six years have gone by but we have not achieved anything yet. WTO accession will be difficult for us as we are still unclear how we will adapt ourselves with it. Let alone the fact that we have to open door for foreign companies to compete against us. Let me take the banking and financial sector for an example. It is still unclear how Vietnamese banks will exist when they have not known about banking services. Instead, they rely mainly on mortgaged loans. The biggest bank in Vietnam has a total asset of around US$2billion while foreign banks, CitiBank Group, for example, have assets valued at US$1,000 billion. Will our banks be able to compete with them?
What should be done to cope with challenges and take opportunities from the accession to WTO?
We want to sell more when we join the WTO. At first, we should organise production activities well, building enterprises capable of manufacturing what the world needs, instead of selling what we have not had yet or selling products of other manufacturers. This is a core interest of us when we join WTO as we have to open our market for foreign enterprises to enter.
Again, I would like to propose authorised agencies to review legal basis to make sure that enterprises are not constrained any longer. State management should be transparent and corruption should be removed. We have so far not been determined enough to address the issues. Therefore, the responsibility of our leaders is huge. They should be creative and dynamic enough to lead the country to the success.
We have advantages for agricultural development, so we should concentrate on improving the quality of our farm-produce by investing in facilities for farm-produce processing. Vietnamese people should be aware that only good products can enter good markets, so they can develop qualified staff members for marketing.
Vietnamese
