Brussels, 13/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - Outgoing European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who is visiting Brussels, expressed the wish on Monday 13 October that an EU-Vietnam free-trade deal would be concluded “in the next few months”.
“We reviewed and commended the very good progress and the substantial degree of agreement reached in all areas of negotiation and agreed on the direction to resolve the remaining issues with a view to concluding talks in the next few months”, stated Barroso and Dung in a joint statement. “Having discussed the options for the final phase of negotiations, we agreed to achieve an ambitious and balanced outcome in all market access areas of the negotiations: (trade in goods, trade in services, investment flows, public procurement), as well as in rules and regulatory disciplines (notably but not only: intellectual property protection, including that of geographical indications of both sides, state enterprises, domestic regulations, investment protection, export duties and export restrictions). We underscored that the completion of the FTA will help Vietnam integrate successfully as a market economy into the global economy”, they stated. To this end, the two instructed their negotiators to intensify efforts and to complete their discussions in line with the agreed common approach so that the agreement could be concluded in the next few months.
The ninth round of technical talks at the end of September produced significant progress in all areas of negotiation (see EUROPE 11165). (EH)