Chief negotiator Mauro Petriccione (Photo:VNA)HCM City (VNA) – A negotiation delegation from the European Union (EU) is on a working visit to Vietnam to raise public awareness of how to optimise the benefits and opportunities from the freshly-concluded free trade agreement between two sides (EVFTA), Chief negotiator Mauro Petriccione said in an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency.
He said the EU and Vietnamese experts will review the agreement to ensure all of its contents are legally built.
The conclusion of the EVFTA is a significant stride in the bilateral economic, trade and investment relations, he said, describing the deal as an inclusive, high-quality one that balances benefits for both the EU and Vietnam.
Particularly, the two sides’ import-export structure is supplementary rather than competitive, thus opening opportunities for businesses to penetrate into the respective markets, he said.
Regarding EU’s trade policy for ASEAN and Vietnam in the coming time, he said, the EU is running a trade deficit with many countries . Therefore, the union is seeking opportunities to expand its markets and promote import-export activities in the global arena.
He highlighted ASEAN as an attractive destination to the EU’s supply chain, but the negotiations for an FTA between EU and ASEAN have not been successful, adding that EU has to implement its strategies to negotiate an FTA with each member in the association.
After Singapore and Vietnam, the EU will continue to conduct bilateral FTA negotiations with other ASEAN member states such as the Philippines and Malaysia, he revealed.
The EU is currently the second biggest trade partner of Vietnam with two-way trade reaching over 41.2 billion USD.
As of 2015, the EU run 1,809 investment projects in Vietnam with a total capital of 23.16 billion USD.-VNA
