Officials from Vietnam’s Delegation to the UN, WTO and other international organizations in Geneva have held a working session with a group of advisors of the WTO Secretariat on issues relating to agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations and trade in services.
At the October 25 meeting, the head of Vietnam’s Delegation, Ambassador Nguyen Trung Thanh expressed concerns over the deadlock of the Doha negotiations and raised questions about issues of Vietnam’s interest in the context of WTO’s efforts to build new principles for negotiations on the Multi-lateral Agreement on Trade in Service.
Suja Rishikesh Mavroidis, advisor to Market Access division, said political goodwill of WTO member countries is an important factor for success of negotiations. For Vietnam, as a Recently Acceded Member (RAM), she said the country should clearly understand its position in all negotiations on agriculture, non-agricultural market access and trade in services. She also recommended that Vietnam should grasp all commitments on tax cuts in different tax lines.
The Vietnamese officials paid close attention to a report by Marie-Bel Martinez-Hommel from the Agriculture and Commodity division, which said agriculture negotiations will focus on market opening, export subsidy and domestic subsidy. Due to the sensitivity of these issues, the negotiations are delayed, affecting the pace of talks in other aspects such as the opening of the non-agricultural and service market.
Regarding trade in services, the WTO advisors said except for countries and groups well-developed in services such as the US, the EU, Japan and Singapore, few other members have responded to the issue.