Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem has asked the governments team of negotiators that are hammering out a Partnership Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with the European Union (EU) to have a deal ready to be signed in October in Belgium.
months in Hanoi on June 28, Deputy PM Khiem urged the committee to work closer with the ministries and agencies involved to come up with a strategy for Vietnam when the country is negotiating free trade agreements (FTA) till 2020 to submit to the Prime Minister next month.
The Deputy PM, who is also the committee’s chairman, asked the committee to complete a report on the country three years after joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a study on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and a post-WTO technical assistance project.
Vietnam and EU have to date finished seven rounds of PCA negotiations, reaching 27 out of 33 articles, according to the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu, who is the committee’s general secretary.
The government’s negotiation team will continue to lobby the EU for recognition as a market economy ahead of the Vietnam-EU FTA negotiations, said Tu.
A total of 22 countries around the world have to date recognised Vietnam as having a market economy, added the Deputy Minister./.