A ministerial meeting of the Viet Nam-US Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council ended in Washington on Monday with an agreement on access to each other’s market for several mutually supplementary agricultural products.

Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang, Vietnamese President of the TIFA Council, said this was an important initiative as the two sides’ agricultural products were not in competition with each other.

The US side will allow the import of litchi, longan, mango and star apple from Viet Nam in addition to the already licensed dragon fruit and rambutant while the Vietnamese side will import pear, apple, grape and cherry fruit from the US.

Hoang said at his meeting with US Minister and Trade Representative Ron Kirk that the two sides had assessed possible problems and discussed co-operation.

Between May 19-20, the TIFA Secretariat held five preparatory sessions on market access, intellectual property, telecommunications, government purchase and agriculture and held a general meeting to review past and future bilateral co-operation.

The two sides agreed on positive results in bilateral co-operation in trade, investment, intellectual property, information technology, services and agriculture and commercial dispute.

Two-way trade between Viet Nam and the US reached US$18 billion last year, 13 times higher than that of 2001 when the Bilateral Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed. The US has become the largest and most important market of Viet Nam’s key export items.

The US pledged investment of $16 billion, ranking sixth among 92 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam.

In addition, the US is now home to around 13,000 Vietnamese students and postgraduates.

The sides affirmed the Viet Nam-US TIFA Council was an effective bilateral co-operation channel while emphasising the need to further strengthen the TIFA Secretariat-level co-operation, including an “early warning” mechanism for emerging difficulties.

The two sides set a target of 20-25 per cent in annual two-way trade growth and creating a suitable bilateral trade balance.

Through the TIFA co-operation framework, the two sides are negotiating on the Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which are expected to be important agreements to raise Viet Nam-US co-operation to a new height.

Source: VNS