Vietnam and Japan have closed 3-month long negotiations and signed an economic partnership agreement (EPA) effective from early 2009, under which the two countries agree to exempt tax for 92 per cent of trade in the next decade, Vietnamese state media said, quoting spokesman of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Yasuhisa Kawamura on December 26.
Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone signed the pact in Tokyo on Thursday December 25, the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi has said.
This is the 10th free trade pact Japan has signed with Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, Chile, Thailand and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. For Vietnam, this is its first bilateral free trade agreement.
Under the freshly inked pact, Japan will cut tariffs on 95 per cent of Vietnamese exports and Vietnam will slash duties on 88 per cent of Japanese goods, Yasuhisa Kawamura noted.
Of imports from Vietnam, Japan will apply duty-free tax on 86 per cent of 23 items of agricultural products including shrimp, crab, honey, durian and litchi, the widest openness for an Asean country, Tran Quoc Khanh head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Department for Multilateral Trade Policies told the Tuoi Tre newspaper.
In return, Vietnam has pledged to issue long-term roadmaps for tax cuts for Japanese industrial products, Khanh said.
“General speaking, the openness of the pact for goods and services is wider than WTO commitments,” Khanh elaborated.
Vietnam has reported trade surplus of US$200 million with Japan out of the bilateral trade of US$14.2 billion in Jan-Oct. Vietnam exported US$7.2 billion of goods to Japan and imported US$7 billion of goods from the foreign country, the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment said.
Japan is the third biggest FDI investor in Vietnam with pledged US$5.1 billion during the period, behind Taiwan and Singapore, the ministry said. (Youth, The People, Labor)
Vietnamese
