The General Department of Vietnam Customs and the Department of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs signed an agreement on financing of the Project “Implementing WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation in Vietnam” in Hanoi on October 29, 2014. The £45,429 sponsorship agreement under the framework of the South East Asia Prosperity Fund Programme will be implemented in the form of technical assistance from October 2014 to March 2015.
Accordingly, main activities of the project include support to the checking of trade facilitation related legal documents as well as organising two seminars to review matters and complete a report to the government on the implementation of WTO trade facilitation agreement in Vietnam. Project results will be submitted to the Government.
Vu Ngoc Anh, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, said trade facilitation agreements play an increasingly important role and have direct effects on the country in all aspects, particularly export. The introduction of the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation established an international mechanism regulating trade barriers formed in the process of trade among nations and set actually effective cooperation mechanism among customs authorities and between customs authorities with other member management agencies to shape multilateral exchange mechanism and process information to serve customs compliance. Before the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation takes place, it is necessary to study, review, compare and assess agreement compliance.
He stressed that the project is an attempt to complete the report on the affair to submit to the Prime Minister for approval and carry out the Agreement. He believed that, with the support of the UK Embassy in Vietnam as well as the Director of the Commonwealth Foundation, the project will be implemented on schedule, with high efficiency.
Andrew Holt, Director of Commonwealth Prosperity Fund, said the UK decided to fund the project because it demonstrated the strengths of the two countries, especially customs modernisation. He hoped that this project will bring benefits to Vietnam and help it fulfil its commitments not only to WTO but also other international agreements.
After the signing, the two parties agreed to work harder to see the objectives in five months. This is the first time the British Embassy has a specific support for the customs sector of Vietnam. The two countries signed two memorandums of understanding on cooperation in prevention of smuggling and customs violations across the border (signed on June 29, 2007) and on capacity building (signed on April 15, 2008). However, these cooperation agreements are still very modest and the two sides agreed to boost cooperation in this field.
Hien Le
Đăng ký: VietNam News