The view was shared by the Chairman of the Working Group and Vietnam's partners to the session, who also underlined the necessity for Vietnam and other members of the group to coordinate closely to resolve existing problems.

The 12th official session of the Working Group on Vietnam's WTO accession took place in Geneva, Switzerland, on July 19.

Deputy Trade Minister Luong Van Tu headed the Vietnamese Government negotiation team to the session, which was also attended by Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen.

On July 17-18, the Vietnamese negotiation team held informal sessions with many WTO members, including the US and the European Union.

During this negotiation session, concerned parties concentrated on illuminating each other's viewpoints on existing issues, such as: the rights of doing import-export business, investment regulations, export tariffs, a special consumption tax on alcohol, and intellectual property rights.

The related parties also devoted much of their time on filing bilateral agreements on the opening up of commodity and service markets to help the WTO Secretariat quickly put these documents into circulation.

Under the Prime Minister's thorough instructions, Vietnamese negotiators made careful preparations for this session and have conducted negotiations in an active, flexible and highly-determined manner.

Owing to the goodwill of partners at the negotiations, encouraging progress was made in many sectors and breakthroughs have been recorded in several areas.

The Chairman and members of the Working Group and the Secretariat of the WTO gave positive evaluations on the result of the 12th working session.

Though issues still remain but concerned parties agreed that differences were narrowed and the negotiations could be completed in late September during the next session of the working group.

Addressing the session in a speech that was applauded by many WTO members, Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen once again asserted Vietnam's determination to join the WTO.

He said that Vietnam has adapted its legal system to WTO's standards, created a legal base to conduct economic reform, maintained a dynamic economic development with high rates, and integrated into the world trade system.

He added that Vietnam's entry to the WTO would help to improve the efficiency in implementing laws, strengthen and intensify the local reform process, as well as, perfect and expand the multilateral trade system.

He urged WTO state members to give more flexibility to Vietnam, which is developing at a low level and is in a transitional process, to continue exerting their efforts with Vietnam in searching out solutions for existing problems, to translate their supports into concrete actions in the last session of negotiations, and help the country access the WTO entry before the APEC meeting scheduled to be held in Ha Noi this November.

Source: VNA