In the chain of communication activities and information dissemination of content of the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement (EVFTA), in quarter 2/2016, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) in collaboration with the concerned agencies has compiled and published the Handbook of EVFTA.
The Handbook is considered to fully provide important information for readers to have an overview of EVFTA. Contents of the handbook consists of 3 main parts: Part I-Introduction of general issues that the readers should know about the context of trade and investment relations between Vietnam and the EU, the potential of the EU market for Vietnamese businesses; Overview of EVFTA and reference information for each concerned subjects. Part II presents a summary of the basic contents of the Agreement in the aspects of goods, rules of origin, Trade remedies, Customs and Trade facilitation; Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT); Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS); Service Trade and Investment; Intellectual Property, State Enterprises, etc. Part III analyzes the market access opportunities and challenges for Vietnamese businesses and investors, and also provides reference websites with useful information.
With its clear structure, presented in a brief and understandable manner, the Handbook of EVFTA is indeed a useful document which helps people, businesses and other concerned subjects to learn about the Agreement more quickly and conveniently. The enterprises and those who are unable to carefully read the entire text of the Agreements can read this handbook firstly to get an overview and then focus on the chapters/sections of interest. Not only for the business community, the Handbook is also a useful resource of information for researchers, the management authorities and all those who wish to learn about the trade and investment relations between Vietnam Nam and EU.
This Handbook is the output of the Activity EU-38 (Handbook), within the framework of the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project (EU-MUTRAP), aiming to provide agencies and departments, especially Vietnamese enterprises with basic contents of the Agreement, then raise awareness of business community on the opportunities and challenges offered by the Agreement, which helps Vietnamese enterprises actively prepare for the integration when the Agreement comes into forces, expectedly in 2018. The Activity EU-38 under Component 1 of the EU-Mutrap is implemented from quarter 1/2016, under the direction and supervision of the Multilateral Trade Policy Department of MOIT.
In this Activity, Asian Management and Development Institute (AMDI), in the role of consulting unit of the project, provided key national experts who are experts from the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) and independent experts for the preparation of the Handbook. Especially, this Handbook has received comments and revision from the key expert of EU-MUTRAP, including Mr. Truong Dinh Tuyen - former Minister of Commerce, Advisor to the Government negotiating team; Mr. Do Huu Hao - former Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade and Mrs. Vu Xuan Nguyet Hong - former Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management. This is a team of leading experts with the knowledge and extensive experience in the field of international trade, commercial law, international trade commitments/agreements. The EVFTA negotiating team members, the specialists from relevant ministries, departments have also provided comments and important inputs for the Handbook. With the active and effective support from EU-Mutrap, the Handbook has been printed out and to be widely published to the concerned readers in series of communication events on introductions of EVFTA in the coming time. /