Which sectors do you think will be hot in this year and how could you access the readiness of Vietnamese businesses for the global economic integration?

I think foreign direct investment (FDI) will be a hot sector in this year with the expected growth rate of 20-30% over the last year. Besides, the financial market will also be bustling and the real estate markets will warm up. Exports will see encouraging results with the minimum increase of 20%. More foreign tourists will come to Vietnam in 2007 with the expected increase of 10%.

As the chief negotiator in bilateral and multilateral negotiations and a leader of the Ministry of Trade, which movements on the market do you think are the most remarkable in the last time?

The good thing was that foreign and domestic investment in production and business increased sharply in the last year, leading to higher exports and lower trade gap. The bad thing was the overly hot stock market, in which people make investment by feeling and in movement, while do not have necessary knowledge about securities. If the State cannot control the bourse well, what happened with the Shanghai stock market in its first operation period will repeat in Vietnam.

When talking about WTO, people always mention the opening of the domestic market for foreign investors, while ignoring the stories about domestic businesses’ outward investment. How would you comment about this?

It is true that Vietnamese investors are not brave enough to make outward investment. I think Vietnamese enterprises should have long term strategy on making investment in Laos, Cambodia and ASEAN countries. By 2013, the tax rates on all categories of products, including the sensitive ones, will be cut to 0-5%. By that time, the ASEAN market will be the communicating vessels. China is also a vast market, and enterprises should push up exports to the country through official channels. It would be a good way to penetrate African and East European markets by setting up workshops there.

Regarding the compilation of the legal framework, what do you think would be the priorities for this year?

In order to reform the administrative mechanism, the National Assembly plans to amend and build up 100 new laws and ordinances during 2005 and 2010. Regarding the joining to WTO, Vietnam has registered to amend and build up 26 laws and ordinances. By November 7, 2006, the time when Vietnam officially admitted to WTO, Vietnam had amended and built up 25 laws and ordinances. Therefore, Vietnam now has a relatively perfect legal framework, suitable to WTO rules.

However, under the final commitments right before the joining to WTO, Vietnam still has to amend three laws more, including the luxury tax on beer and wine, the provisions 52 and 104 of the Enterprise Law and a provision on copyright infringement in the Criminal Law. In addition, a big volume of work will be put on the burden of management authorities as they will have to amend a lot of documents guiding the implementation of the laws.

Recently, Vietnam and Japan kicked off the negotiations on a new economic and trade agreement with Japan, which is expected to have a wider and deeper coverage than normal FTA (free trade agreement). Would it be the priority task of Vietnam for the next years?

We have finished the first round of negotiation for the Vietnam – Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. The agreement will help create a better environment to boost up trade with Japan. Japan is the biggest ODA partner and biggest foreign direct investor of Vietnam. Meanwhile, Japan considers Vietnam its strategic market in South East Asia. In addition, we will join the Doha round negotiations, make negotiations with the partners, applying for joining WTO, and with developing countries on global preferential tariff.

Source: TBKTSG