The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 26th ASEAN Summit in Malaysia.
They touched upon the final package of the negotiations involvingmarket opening alongside management rules and regulations concerningintellectual property rights.
Hoang urged the EUto create favourable conditions for Vietnam’s key export products, forexample, textile and garment, footwear, farming goods and seafood, toenter its markets. He also committed to opening doors for Europeanenterprises in Vietnam.
During his visit theEurope in October last year, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met withPresident of the European Commission (EC) Manuel Barroso to identifyways for the settlement of unsolved issues in a bid to soon conclude theFTA.
Since then, Vietnam and the EU have achieved significant progress in the FTA negotiations on several key matters.
The EU is one of Vietnam’s largest trade partners with two-way tradehitting 36.8 billion USD last year, a rise of 9 percent from 2013.Vietnam shipped to the partner 28 billion USD worth of commodities whileits import reached 9 billion USD.
Some 25 outof the 28 European countries have invested in Vietnam by the end of 2014with a total registered investment of 37.8 billion USD pouring in 2,100projects, mainly in the fields of industry, construction and services.
The same day, the Vietnamese Minister, on behalfof ASEAN, also discussed the ASEAN-EU trade and investment workprogramme for 2015-2016 with the European Commissioner to map outorientations for closer ASEAN-EU cooperation.-VNA