EC Fully Favors Vietnam's WTO Entry with More Supports

President of the European Commission (EC), Manuel Barroso, has reiterated EC’s strong support for Vietnam’s bid to join the WTO when announcing the conclusion of multilateral negotiations on the issue and promising aid worth EUR160 million to Vietnam September 8, state media reported.

 

The EC President made the commitments on the talks held for Vietnam’s delegation of high-ranking officials led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last Friday at the EC Headquarter in Brussels.

 

Manuel Barroso said the two sides will adopt measures to further deepen their all-faceted ties in the coming time, stressing that Vietnam is the European Union’s (EU) most important partner in Asia.

 

President Manuel Barroso also highly spoke of Vietnam's achievements during its doi moi (renewal) process and vowed to provide more aid to support Vietnam’s in implementing its socio-economic development in the 2007-2013 period and a future comprehensive Master Plan with EU approved by the Vietnam Government last year.

 

On this occasion, for his part, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung emphasized that Vietnam always attaches importance to boosting cooperative and all-round relations with EU, asking the EU to soon recognize Vietnam as a country with a market economy and expressing his hope that EU member countries will further support Vietnam in the post-WTO period.

 

The leader of the Vietnamese Government also pledged to create favorable conditions for EU investors to invest and operate in Vietnam.

 

On the other hand, PM Dung noted that the EU’s recent decision to levy anti-dumping duties on Vietnamese leather shoes did not reflect the growing cooperation between the two sides and ran counter to the current trend of trade liberalization.

 

Meanwhile, Barroso made no comment on the matter during the talks, which took place in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding.

 

Both PM Dung and EC President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed to the signing of a new cooperation agreement in the future to replace the framework cooperation agreement, which was reached between Vietnam and EU in 1995 and took effect in 1996, and setting up a regular exchange mechanism at the ministerial level.

 

After the talks, PM Dung also held talks with his Belgian counterpart, Guy Verhofstadt and met with staff of the Vietnamese embassy and representatives of the overseas Vietnamese community in Belgium.

 

This is the first outbound tour of Dung in the post of Vietnamese Prime Minister during which he also attended the annual Asia-Europe Meeting 6 (ASEM 6) in Helsinki, Finland from September 10-11.

 

Vietnam and the EC officially established diplomatic relations in October 1990. The EC Mission to Vietnam made its debut in Hanoi in 1996.

 

The ties were further tightened through official visits by their leaders with the most noteworthy being a visit to the EC by Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh in March 2004 and EC Vice President Manuel Marin's visit to Vietnam in September 1995.

 

EU and Vietnam reached an agreement on market access on March 31, 2005, under which the EC has halted imposed garment and textile quotas on Vietnam since January 1, 2005. In return, Vietnam has reduced tariffs on several products imported from European Union (EU) countries, including fibers, wines, and other alcoholic drinks.

 

Vietnam on June 14, 2005 became the first Southeast Asian country approved the master plan on Vietnam-EU relations and the action plan to develop bilateral ties until 2010 and vision to 2020, making the EU become the unique partner that Vietnam has set target to develop all-faced relations.

 

EC provided EUR162 million in non-refundable aid for Vietnam in the 2002-2006 period, focusing on the country's human development and international economic integration with the implementation of 16 bilateral initiatives in Vietnam with a total fund of EUR160 million.

 

The two-way trade reached $8.2 billion in 2005 and is expected to increase to a record of $9.2 billion in 2006, including Vietnam’s exports worth $6.05 billion.

 

By late 2005, the EC has invested in 501 projects in Vietnam with total registered capital of over $7 billion.