Seminar discusses preferential tariff to boost exports to Japan
(VOV) - On July 21, the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises held a round-table seminar in Hanoi discussing Vietnam’s preferential import tariff when carrying out the 2015-2019 Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.
Attendees pointed out the pros and cons and gave recommendations on how to boost exports to Japan, noting that the agreement has offered huge opportunities for domestic products to achieve greater Japanese market penetration, especially agricultural produce, seafood and garments and textiles.
Average import duties from Japan to Vietnam will be reduced from 6.1% in 2015 to 3.7% finally in 2018.
However, domestic businesses have to face serious obstacles when competing with local Japanese, higher quality products.
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In order to take full advantages of the agreement, Tran Dinh Thien, Director of the Vietnam Economics Institute, said businesses should focus on increasing the quality of their products rather than productivity.
Some economic exports said tax and financial issues are not barriers for domestic businesses to enter the Japanese market. The bottom line is that they have to manage to meet Japanese requirements on the production process, and food hygiene and safety.