FTAP provides comprehensive information about FTA implementation plans

Information about FTA implementation plans

Vietnam has signed 17 FTAs at both bilateral and multilateral levels, thereby establishing free trade relations with many leading trading partners in the world.

To quickly take advantage of opportunities from FTAs, the Vietnamese government, ministries and sectors have issued implementation plans.

To help businesses grasp information and action plans of localities, ministries, and sectors, the FTAP (at fta.gov.vn) is providing information about specific plans of related units, which include extremely useful information for businesses.

For example, regarding the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the FTAP integrates Decision No.121/QD-TTg dated January 24, 2019 of the Prime Minister and 25 decisions of ministries and sectors on the CPTPP implementation plan.

The above decisions always provide information about support for businesses. For example, Decision No.456/QD-BCT dated March 1, 2019 on the plan for the implementation of the CPTPP of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) said the ministry will hold seminars to introduce the CPTPP and key commitments of Vietnam in provinces and cities, focusing on the strategic significance of the CPTPP, Vietnam's commitments in various areas, and potential opportunities for each market.

Decision No.2055/BNN-HTQT dated March 25, 2019 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development says that the ministry will coordinate with ministries and sectors to organize training on the enforcement of CPTPP commitments in areas such as trading of agricultural products, wildlife and marine ecosystem conservation.

As for localities, the FTAP integrates decisions of 62 provinces and cities on CPTPP implementation plans so that businesses can seek for investment opportunities.

Updating information about supporting businesses

According to the MoIT, currently, activities to support businesses to improve their capacity are still going on in localities, but most of them are mainly integrated in the general development policies of provinces, not for the implementation of certain FTAs, resulting in unconcentrated support and little focus on advantageous areas or industries of the provinces and market opportunities from the FTAs.

In addition, many Vietnamese businesses lack capital to build brands because programs connecting banks and businesses to take advantage of export opportunities from FTAs have not been implemented in a maximum effective manner to meet the actual needs of businesses. Therefore, the coordination between relevant ministries and sectors with commercial banks needs to be more effective for businesses to take advantage of opportunities from FTAs. Although trade promotion activities in CPTPP, EVFTA and UKVFTA have been enhanced after coming into effect, they have not met the demand of enterprises.

To continue to ease difficulties and limitations in the support for the implementation of FTAs, the MoIT’s Multilateral Trade Policy Department said that the ministry is completing and upgrading the FTAP to provide information about policies, commitments as well as programs and plans to support businesses and fields of specific ministries, sectors and localities; at the same time, getting feedback, opinions and responding to queries of businesses about FTA commitments.