WTO ready to help accelerate Vietnam's accession
The World Trade Organization is ready to do all it can to speed up Vietnam's accession but the pace will
ultimately depend on the political determination of communist authorities, WTO director general Mike
Moore said here.
"It depends on how much focus there is on it, it depends on how important Vietnam believes this is to their
economic progress," Moore told reporters as he prepared to hold talks with Prime Minister Phan Van
Khai.
"Accession is important to Vietnam, it's important to us. We are here to facilitate."
The WTO chief said Vietnam was "very close" to replying to the initial concerns about its accession which
had been raised by the organization's 140 members.
The questions had originally numbered "several thousand", although they had been whittled down by WTO
officials, he said.
They covered the whole range of concerns from the status of Vietnam's large state sector, to customs
valuations, intellectual property rights and the country's legislative programme.
"This is natural, this is normal... we are going through a similar phase with Russia," Moore said.
"If we can get some of these files unlocked... then we can accelerate (the accession) process."
Moore said he would be working closely with the World Bank and United Nations Development
Programme to see what technical assistance could be provided for the arduous process that lay ahead.
"There is an interministerial working party... I will encourage its work and provide some specialist experts
if necessary," he said.
The WTO chief said he fully supported Vietnam's swift accession, saying the alternative was "economic
stagnation" for the communist state.
For any country, WTO membership "signals we are in business and we welcome investment -- it's a seal
of good housekeeping and business people feel more secure."
Trade Minister Vu Khoan had raised a number of cases of Vietnamese goods being turned back at foreign
ports in late-night talks on Thursday.
If Vietnam were already a WTO member, it would have had a legal mechanism to challenge the validity of
such exclusions, Moore said.
The WTO chief said he did not foresee agriculture posing a problem for Vietnam's accession as it had with
that of its giant communist neighbour China.
"Agriculture could be a winner for Vietnam in the long range," he said.
The WTO needed to do more to help countries like Vietnam, which depended so heavily on tariffs for
their revenue flows, to find alternative ways of raising government funds, he said.
Buoyed by the final ratification of a landmark trade deal with the United States on Wednesday, Vietnam
has signalled a newfound determination to press ahead with WTO membership.
"We have finished already four rounds of negotiations on transparency. Now it is time for us to start
substantial negotiations," Khoan said Thursday ahead of his talks with the WTO chief.
Moore said he believed the trade deal with the US, which is based on WTO rules, provided a sound
foundation for the talks with other key trading partners that would be necessary for WTO accession.
"The trade agreement is a good stepping stone," he said.
Agence France Presse - November 30, 2001.
Buoyed by US trade deal, Vietnam steps up WTO membership talks
Communist Vietnam launched intensive talks on World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, buoyed
by the final ratification of an historic trade deal with the United States.
Trade Minister Vu Khoan declined to give a target date for Vietnam's accession as he went into late night
talks with WTO director general Mike Moore.
"Tomorrow I myself want to be a member of the WTO," he joked.
But he made clear that Vietnam was determined to pursue WTO membership vigorously now that
ratification of the US trade deal had been completed.
"We have finished already four rounds of negotiations on transparency. Now it is time for us to start
substantial negotiations," he said.
"We are finalising the initial offers for this purpose."
Moore said he was visiting at Vietnam's request to discuss ways of accelerating its membership.
"The purpose is to meet with ministers and the prime minister and talk about how we can speed up
Vietnam's accession to the WTO."
He warned that the accession process would take "a lot of political will power" but added that Vietnam
was well known for sticking to its guns.
He congratulated Khoan on the ratification of the US trade deal but declined to discuss any timetable for
Vietnamese membership saying that that was the purpose of his talks here.
The communist authorities have come under mounting pressure to press ahead with accession before the
WTO gets bogged down in negotiations on the new world trade round launched in the Gulf state of Qatar
earlier this month.
Vietnam should aim to follow its communist neighbour China into the WTO within two to four years,
European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said in September.
World Bank officials agreed Vietnam should press ahead as quickly as possible now that the trade
agreement with the United States was in the bag.
"It is the surest way of getting greater access to markets outside," the bank's chief economist for Vietnam,
Kazi Matin, told reporters.
"If you don't have WTO membership, even full access to the Chinese market is going to be difficult.
"It's also good for the internal reform process and Vietnam's competitive efficiency."
Matin said a four-year timeframe for Vietnam's accession looked "do-able," but cautioned it is "not a
process that is wholly in Vietnam's control."
US officials say that US trade deal, which is based on WTO rules, provides an excellent basis for Vietnam
to launch the necessary talks with other key trading partners for WTO membership.
Agence France Presse - November 30, 2001.
|