Thao, who is also Vietnamese Ambassador to Beligum and Luxembourg, said the agreement took effect on August 1 last yer at a hard time when EU countries were very heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, the pandemic has continued to break out in Southeast Asian countries. Vietnam is not an exception.
However, trade turnover between Vietnam and the EU still reached 50 billion USD last year, and grew by 4.5 percent in the last five months of 2020.
Thảo said this positive outcome has shown that Vietnamese products have met the high standards of the EU market. At a time when the EU is facing many difficulties, Vietnamese goods can still enter this market, contributing to maintaining and diversifying supply chains in the context of global supply chain disruptions.
However, the ambasador said there is still much work to be done in the coming time.
He said it is necessary for the Vietnamese government to continue to exchange and negotiate with the EU to perfect standards, regulations and mutual recognition to help the two sides' goods penetrate more deeply into each other's markets.
Referring to the skills that Vietnamese businesses need to supplement to stay firmly in the EU "playground" in the near future, Thao stressed that more capital should be poured in to improve the competitiveness for their products in terms of quality and scale to meet the high standards of the European market./.
