Vietnam - UAE hope to soon sign Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Vietnam and the UAE hope to soon conclude negotiations on the Vietnam-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), to sign and put it into effect, promoting trade and investment between the two countries.

Vietnam and the UAE look forward to soon concluding negotiations and signing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

The Ministry of Industry and Trade and relevant ministries and sectors met with the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to reach agreement on the final contents of the negotiations on the Vietnam - UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

The free trade agreement with the UAE is one of Vietnam's priorities. Therefore, in recent times, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other ministries and sectors have made efforts to promote the negotiation process to soon sign and put the CEPA Agreement into effect, thereby helping to promote trade and investment activities between the two countries.

Currently, the terms at the ministerial level have been agreed upon. Accordingly, the two sides agreed to report to the competent authorities of the two countries on the results of the discussions at the ministerial level in order to soon complete the entire negotiation process and officially sign the Agreement as soon as possible.

Commenting on the prospects for cooperation between the two countries, according to the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi: " Currently, a number of large Vietnamese corporations have taken advantage of the CEPA Agreement to start implementing investment and business activities in the UAE. In the opposite direction, UAE investors are also researching to invest in a number of large projects in Vietnam."

In 2023, the UAE will be Vietnam's largest export market and second largest trading partner (after Kuwait) in West Asia.

In the period 2019-2023, the total trade exchange between the two countries will average about 4.8 billion USD/year. In terms of trade balance, Vietnam always has a large trade surplus with the UAE market (over 3 billion USD/year).

In the first 6 months of 2024, total bilateral trade reached over 3.2 billion USD, up 43% over the same period in 2023; of which Vietnam's exports reached over 2.8 billion USD, up 47% and imports reached over 435 million USD, up 25%.

In terms of commodity structure, Vietnam's main export items to the UAE include mobile phones, machinery, equipment, other spare parts, computers and components, footwear, textiles, means of transport and spare parts, agricultural products (cashew nuts, pepper, vegetables, rice)...

Vietnam's main import items from the UAE include other petroleum products, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), raw plastics, animal feed and raw materials, base metals, chemicals, etc.

The trade agreement with the UAE, when signed and put into effect, will open up great opportunities for Vietnam's key products such as agricultural products, textiles, footwear, etc. to access many other markets, through the important transit market of the UAE.

In 2022, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and the UAE Ministry of Economy studied the possibility of negotiating and signing a bilateral free trade agreement.
After the feasibility study and impact assessment of the FTA between Vietnam and the UAE, on the basis of agreement with the UAE, in April 2023, the two sides agreed on the name of the bilateral FTA as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), and signed a Ministerial Statement on the initiation of negotiations as well as agreeing on the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the CEPA.
On June 20, 2023, the Government decided to launch CEPA negotiations in the context of increasingly good bilateral relations between Vietnam and the UAE, especially in the economic and trade fields.
Since the start of negotiations, Vietnam and the UAE have gone through CEPA negotiation sessions with the following contents: trade in goods, trade in services, investment facilitation, rules of origin, intellectual property, digital trade, trade defense, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), technical barriers to trade (TBT), customs and trade facilitation, government procurement, legal and institutional issues, economic cooperation and small and medium enterprises.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/viet-nam---uae-mong-som-ky-hiep-dinh-doi-tac-kinh-te-toan-dien-d221638.html