Local firms unaware of technical barriers to trade

Giam said in the international economic integration process, the role of standardisation in general and technical barriers to trade in particular becomes increasingly important, thus countries have paid great effort to establish and maintain technical measures, which may create implicit barriers to international trade and imported goods.

The common trend of international trade is that goods are in free circulation with an import tariff of zero. However, countries will use more non-tariff measures to protect domestic production against the fierce competition from imported goods, Giam added.

Nguyen Binh Giang from the Import and Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade echoed Giam’s views, saying that the basic solution for businesses is to accelerate market research and trade promotion, and build a long-term strategy to improve the quality of export products to make them more competitive.

Moreover, local firms should use more locally found materials to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, renovate their operation methods and foresee arising challenges and technical barriers to have timely response.

At the seminar, experts all agreed that it is essential for local firms to raise awareness and update information about technical barriers to trade on Vietnam’s important export markets like Japan, the US, Russia, EU and ASEAN as the country is deeply integrating into the world market.

In addition, the Government should develop supporting programmes to help key export industries overcome technical barriers to spur export value and effectively penetrate international market.