On May 16, speaking to the media about the recently concluded bilateral WTO entry talks with the US on the sidelines of the ninth session of the 11th National Assembly (NA), Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan said the NA has played an important role in improving relations with the US in general and in promoting negotiations with the US for Vietnam's WTO entry in particular.

Mr Khoan said after the bilateral agreement between Vietnam and the US was reached, some major work should be done like documenting the results of the negotiations, signing the document, and then lobbying for the US Congress approval of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status for Vietnam. First with WTO-member countries in general, Vietnam will conduct a new round of multilateral negotiations, possibly in late June or early July. The next step is to make an admission report, which has already been outlined and to which Vietnam will have to add the agreements it has recently reached with other countries before delivering the report to the WTO Council for consideration and approval, Mr Khoan said.

Joining the WTO will bring Vietnam both opportunities and challenges. Mr Khoan said each sector has its own difficulties, but the greatest difficulties lie in service sector, which is still quite new and Greek to Vietnam. Even many businesses are not interested in this field. And that is Vietnam’s weakness.

Mr Khoan said that with competition in the field of commodities, Vietnam is not worried about farm produce, such as coffee, fish, pepper and rice. However, the US is stronger than Vietnam in the production of soya bean and maize, so competition will become fierce. Therefore, Vietnam needs to make a thorough analysis of each product. On the other hand, the country has the advantage of cheap labour, which can help make the price of Vietnamese commodities competitive enough in the world market, Mr Khoan added.

How will the Vietnamese economy in general and the banking sector in particular be affected when Vietnam joins the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and will commercial banks coordinate with each other to survive? This is also another big question raised by many domestic and foreign reporters for Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Le Duc Thuy.

Mr Thuy said the banking sector has common rules, and coordination among commercial banks means that traders need guilds and customers. However, coordination does not mean that all stand together to compete against the others. The market is where exists a relationship between cooperation and competition, not a war between the two sides.

Source: VOV news