Vietnam, Australia facilitate effective implementation of FTAs

The agreement was reached during the fourth meeting of the trade working group within the framework of the Ministerial-level Vietnam-Australia Economic Partnership, virtually held on March 30. The online meeting brought together representatives of ministries in charge of foreign affairs, trade, investment, science, energy, agriculture, and natural resources of the two countries.

The two sides shared the view that the Vietnam – Australia trade cooperation has grown considerably in recent times, with their two-way trade hitting US$15.7 billion last year, making Australia the seventh largest trading partner for Vietnam. In the first two months of 2023 alone, bilateral trade turnover fetched US$2 billion, of which US$1.2 billion was generated from Vietnamese imports.

Vietnam and Australia have taken advantage of FTAs of which they are both members, including the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (AANZFTA), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as well as drastic measures and flexible policies introduced by their governments to boost their trade cooperation, delegates said.

They suggested that the two sides further facilitate market access for Vietnamese agricultural products such as passion fruit, pomelo, and fresh flowers, as well as Australian products like honey, kangaroo meat and venison into each other’s markets. They also suggested fostering trade and investment cooperation in the fields of coal mining and processing, liquefied natural gas and minerals.

The two sides will focus on technical cooperation and investment in agriculture, share experiences in trade promotion and supply chain, and boost transportation cooperation similar to the Aus4Transport model, while speeding up the signing of a protocol amending and supplementing the Vietnam - Australia aviation agreement.

At the working session, both sides highly appreciated the efforts of relevant agencies in implementing the Vietnam – Australia Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy (EEES), especially in periodically conducting the dialogue on trade remedies.

They acknowledged both sides’ efforts in negotiating and formulating two Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) on establishing a ministerial-level dialogue mechanism on trade, energy and minerals, and proposing the signing of a document on digital commerce.

The two MoUs are expected to be signed this year to create an important exchange channel for government agencies and business communities in order to further promote cooperation in those fields.

Recommendations by delegates at the meeting will be submitted to the coming meeting of the Ministerial-level Vietnam-Australia Economic Partnership slated for mid-April 2023.