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| Trade Minister Truong Dinh
Tuyen: “U.S. should try to understand Vietnam
better.” |
| Photo by Thomas Jandl |
There is no doubt that trade relations have improved
since the signing of the Bilateral Trade Agreement
(BTA), but the United States does not fully understand
the situation of a country like Vietnam. This is
the assessment of Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen
of the progress of bilateral relations between the
two nations 15 months after the Minister’s
predecessor signed the BTA in Washington.
“The U.S. legal system is too complex, while
Vietnam is an economy in its transition period,
and the two countries’ businesses do not quite
completely understand each other,” Tuyen says.
Tuyen’s main complaints are about the U.S.
position in the catfish dumping case and the imposition
of textile quotas.
When the U.S. Commerce Department found that Vietnam
is not a market economy, many in Vietnam –
and quite some in the United States – cringed.
Tuyen makes the point: “There is no pure market
economy in the world. I told the U.S. government
that.” He remarks on the U.S farming subsidies
giving U.S. farmers an annual handout many times
what Vietnam could afford in decades.
“But nobody claims that the United States is
not a market economy. Moreover, the United States
has accepted that several other transitional economies
are market economies, although their markets are
much less free than ours. We do not complain about
their designation, but we request fair treatment
for us.”
Designation as a market economy is of key importance
when dumping cases are brought against a country.
Tuyen’s second grievance is of a more general
nature. He says that as Vietnam expects to become
a World Trade Organization (WTO) member in 2005,
he would hope that the WTO make more progress in
opening markets for developing nations. “The
developed countries should open their markets, according
to special and preferential treatment to the less
developed and developing countries, enabling them
to have opportunities and overcome challenges in
sharing the benefits reaped by economic globalization
and trade liberalization.”
The U.S. approach to textile imports, where the
United States imposed quotas on Vietnam barely a
year after the BTA was signed runs counter to the
principles of the BTA and free trade, Tuyen believes.
He proudly points to the fact that Vietnam has accepted
significant pain when it opened its borders to other
SE Asian nations under the ASEAN Free Trade Area
agreement. This tariff reduction caused a doubling
of intra-association trade, Tuyen says. Vietnam
has already reduced 85% of its tariff lines and
will continue to do so until in 2006 almost all
tariff lines will be between 0% and 5%. Similarly,
Vietnam has “opened its market for the United
States earlier than scheduled in the BTA.”
Tuyen believes that while the immediate trade flows
seem to favor Vietnam, this is a logical development
that will reverse itself. “In the initial years,
exports to the United States will increase faster.
… That is necessary. For imports, we need the
hard currency.” But Vietnam is a market of
80 million with great need for U.S. technology,
and as the economy grows, U.S. companies will be
doing well. Boeing’s success is an early sign
of this development.
Vietnam, says Tuyen, is an emerging market with
a stable political system, security and high growth.
Vietnam seeks productive relations with the United
States. But the promise of the BTA has not yet been
fulfilled to its fullest potential.
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