This piece first published by OHMYNEWS on 2006-10-16
Path cleared to become 150th member of world's largest trade organization
The World Trade Organization's door has now opened for Vietnam, as the 14th session of multilateral negotiations concluded successfully last Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.
On Friday afternoon, Eirik Glenne, Norwegian Ambassador to the WTO and the chairman of the multilateral negotiations committee on Vietnam's accession, made an important announcement: "Multilateral negotiations on Vietnam's entry to WTO have resolved all final problems."
The announcement serves as the successful conclusion of the 11-year long difficult negotiations of Vietnam to become a WTO member.
It also opened the door for Vietnam to become the 150th member of the world's largest trade organization. If things go smoothly, Vietnam may be admitted as a new member by early November, as the country had hoped.
Joining the WTO has been a priority foreign policy objective for Vietnam for years, since membership status ensures the competitiveness of its export-driven economy with other rivals who are already members, such as China. Vietnam officially applied for WTO membership in January 1995.
The country has since made great efforts to satisfy the requirements of the WTO task force, especially WTO members who require bilateral negotiations. Twenty-eight WTO members required Vietnam to have bilateral negotiations, including the U.S. and South Korea.
To comply with the WTO's regulations, Vietnam not only had to revive many existing laws, but also issue new laws and ordinances. So far, Vietnam has issued more than 20 new laws and ordinances, including the Commercial Law, the Law on Intellectual Property Rights, the Investment Law, the Enterprise Law and the Law on Competition.
According to Deputy Trade Minister Luong Van Tu, almost all the dialogue partners praised Vietnam's recent efforts to revise laws in accordance with the country's administrative reform and economic renewal, as well as international practices.
Besides revising existing legal documents, Vietnam has made strong commitments to address WTO members' concerns.
According to Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen, though it is a developing country with an economy in transition, Vietnam's commitments were greater than those of other WTO members at a similar level of development.
Vietnam has even pledged to abolish export subsidies for its agricultural products as soon as it becomes a WTO member, Tuyen stressed.
In both the bilateral and multilateral negotiations, Vietnam did its best to reach agreement on tariff reductions and market opening, especially in areas deemed sensitive to its economy.
Now that a final agreement has been reached, the chairman of the working party on Vietnam's entry has to distribute a draft treaty to member states before Oct. 18 for a final review. The negotiating group will meet again on Oct. 26 to approve the entire document. It takes 10 days to distribute the documents to all WTO members. Therefore, Vietnam could only be admitted at a special meeting of the 149-state WTO on Nov. 7 at the earliest.
Path cleared to become 150th member of world's largest trade organization
The World Trade Organization's door has now opened for Vietnam, as the 14th session of multilateral negotiations concluded successfully last Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.
On Friday afternoon, Eirik Glenne, Norwegian Ambassador to the WTO and the chairman of the multilateral negotiations committee on Vietnam's accession, made an important announcement: "Multilateral negotiations on Vietnam's entry to WTO have resolved all final problems."
The announcement serves as the successful conclusion of the 11-year long difficult negotiations of Vietnam to become a WTO member.
It also opened the door for Vietnam to become the 150th member of the world's largest trade organization. If things go smoothly, Vietnam may be admitted as a new member by early November, as the country had hoped.
Joining the WTO has been a priority foreign policy objective for Vietnam for years, since membership status ensures the competitiveness of its export-driven economy with other rivals who are already members, such as China. Vietnam officially applied for WTO membership in January 1995.
The country has since made great efforts to satisfy the requirements of the WTO task force, especially WTO members who require bilateral negotiations. Twenty-eight WTO members required Vietnam to have bilateral negotiations, including the U.S. and South Korea.
To comply with the WTO's regulations, Vietnam not only had to revive many existing laws, but also issue new laws and ordinances. So far, Vietnam has issued more than 20 new laws and ordinances, including the Commercial Law, the Law on Intellectual Property Rights, the Investment Law, the Enterprise Law and the Law on Competition.
According to Deputy Trade Minister Luong Van Tu, almost all the dialogue partners praised Vietnam's recent efforts to revise laws in accordance with the country's administrative reform and economic renewal, as well as international practices.
Besides revising existing legal documents, Vietnam has made strong commitments to address WTO members' concerns.
According to Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen, though it is a developing country with an economy in transition, Vietnam's commitments were greater than those of other WTO members at a similar level of development.
Vietnam has even pledged to abolish export subsidies for its agricultural products as soon as it becomes a WTO member, Tuyen stressed.
In both the bilateral and multilateral negotiations, Vietnam did its best to reach agreement on tariff reductions and market opening, especially in areas deemed sensitive to its economy.
Now that a final agreement has been reached, the chairman of the working party on Vietnam's entry has to distribute a draft treaty to member states before Oct. 18 for a final review. The negotiating group will meet again on Oct. 26 to approve the entire document. It takes 10 days to distribute the documents to all WTO members. Therefore, Vietnam could only be admitted at a special meeting of the 149-state WTO on Nov. 7 at the earliest.
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