GBA Monthly Business Meeting: Free Trade Agreements in Vietnam
Bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which took effect from January 1, are expected to become a new momentum promoting Vietnam’s economic growth in 2022. Experts, however, said that enterprises need to proactively improve their competitiveness and self-innovate in order to meet the process of international economic integration and fully tap opportunities in the new context, thus enabling them to go faster and further in the future.
Le Meridien Saigon, Monday 6 June – GBA Monthly Business Meeting under the theme Free Trade Agreements in Vietnam was held to give a holistic view on FTAs in SEA and its latest developments, as well as to estimate potentially significant medium and long-term effects from 2-year EVFTA on the business landscape in Vietnam.
“FTAs no longer only open markets but they can drive economic reform!“ stated by our keynote speaker, Robin Hoenig, Divisional Head of Trade Policy Competence Centre (Asia/ASEAN), Singaporean-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Robin covered two first areas on the overview of SEA’s trade policy landscape and the latest developments in FTAs in some brief notes:
- The Rules of Origin are becoming increasingly business friendly to ensure a higher utilization rate of the FTAs
- Facilitating expedient customs clearance
- FTAs a successful tool in dealing with technical barriers to trade
- Facilitating greater trade in services through negative listing
- Government procurement: EU FTAs as an avenue to participate in procurement markets
- Digital trade and cross border movement of data: Asia as the new rules setter?
Following that, Jean-Jacques Bouflet, Vice Chairman, EuroCham Vietnam, provided his expert insights about EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) – Opportunities for Vietnam & EU, the implementation, challenges and recommendations. This is a new generation FTA between Vietnam and 28 European Union member states. EVFTA and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are two of the largest new generation free trade agreements that Vietnam’s largest ever negotiated.
The meeting concluded with a cozy dinner where networking and discussions continued. We would like to thank Le Meridien Saigon for hosting this event!
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The GBA Monthly Business Meeting is a business-oriented platform happening every first Monday of the month.
The next meeting will be hosted by our Board Member Mr. Marko Walde on 4 July 2022 at Lotte Legend Saigon.
See you again at the GBA Monthly Business Meeting in July!
