Papers for Last WTO Joint Negotiations Completed: Vietnamese Negotiator

All documents for the upcoming negotiations expected to be the last round on Vietnam’s bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) in July are already completed, revealed a member of the Vietnamese negotiation commission to state media recently.

 

“Vietnamese negotiators are now waiting for the day of departure, hoping that this will be the final multilateral round before Vietnam joins the WTO,” the unanimous official said.

 

The official noted that the coming discussion would be extremely important for Vietnam as it will look over the report of the WTO Working Group and complete all outstanding issues.

 

Vietnam will also report its legislative action programme, and provide updates on laws the National Assembly has issued since the multilateral round of negotiations in March 2006.

 

Besides, Vietnam will answer any questions posed by existing WTO members, he said

 

The Vietnamese delegation will join with the WTO Secretariat to finalise the WTO accession commitment documentation, which includes three main parts: the report from the WTO Working Group, protocol for WTO accession and specific WTO bilateral commitments, he informed.

 

The WTO Secretariat will complete the document and return it to Vietnam for examination. The document will be submitted to the WTO General Assembly in October 2006. If there are no further member protests, Vietnam will get the WTO ticket, he said.

 

Earlier, Vietnamese Ambassador to the WTO Ngo Quang Xuan announced to the press that 28 negotiation partners will continue to raise their demands for Vietnam to finalise their goals, but he added that the situation will be much easier for Vietnam because it has already concluded the talk with its toughest member, the US.

 

Vietnam is also in a rush to lobby for Permanent Normal Trade Relation (PNTR) from the US congress.

 

Part of the US House of Representative, including 8 senators and 22 congress people have shown their support of the bill after it was introduced two days ago.

 

In a related development, 30 leading companies, including enterprises in the field of agriculture in the US have sent letters to 535 congressman to call for support for Vietnam’s PNTR bill.

 

Additionally, the US-Vietnam Trade Council right after the introduction of the PNTR bill issued a press release supporting Vietnam.

 

It stated that enterprises from the both sides will be benefited if Vietnam received the trade status.

 

“US enterprises will be able to access the potential emerging market of Vietnam,” the letter said.