According to the “Vietcom Express” report on February 12: At 18:00 on February 12, Hanoi time, the European Parliament voted to adopt the “EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA)”, including Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Investment Protection Agreement (IPA). The Free Trade Agreement can enter into force upon approval by the European Council, while the Investment Protection Agreement requires approval by all EU member states. The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement also needs to be approved by the European Council before it can enter into force.
As for Vietnam, the President will submit the proposal to the next National Assembly in May for review and approval based on the government’s proposal. Tran Tuan Anh, Minister of Industry and Trade of Vietnam, said: “If everything goes well, the agreement will take effect in July. When the new coronavirus epidemic has a negative impact on Vietnam’s economy, the agreement will become an economic growth lever and enable Vietnamese companies to enter a GDP with a scale of up to 10%. The US$18 trillion EU market provides huge opportunities.”
The EU is one of Vietnam’s largest export markets, but Vietnamese goods have limited competitiveness in the regional market. The share is smaller. Therefore, with the commitment to open markets, the price competitiveness of Vietnamese goods exported to the EU will be improved, which will help promote trade relations between Vietnam and the EU and expand the export of Vietnamese goods to the EU.
Vietnam’s total import and export volume in 2019 exceeded US$500 billion, of which exports to the EU were US$41.48 billion and imports from the EU were US$14.91 billion.
