On the morning of September 16^th, in Binh Duong province, the Ministry of Industry and Trade organized a workshop "Promoting export potential and improving trade defense response capacity in Asian, African and Oceania markets".

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Phan Thi Thang emphasized: Globalization and international economic integration are modern trends. Fully and correctly aware of that trend, the Party and State have carried out the process of innovation and proactive international integration. From being surrounded and embargoed, Vietnam has established economic, trade and investment cooperation with more than 230 countries and territories. Up to now, Vietnam has signed and is negotiating 19 free trade agreements (FTA). It can be said that Vietnam is one of the most open countries and has signed the most FTAs in the world.

Conference image

Among export markets, Asia - Africa and Oceania are always important markets for Vietnam. Among them, we can name familiar partners of Vietnam such as: China, Hong Kong (China), Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia...

According to Deputy Minister Phan Thi Thang, in recent years, Vietnam has paid special attention to strengthening economic cooperation with countries in the Asia-Africa and Oceania regions to boost exports in the potential region. this feature. Specifically, Vietnam has taken advantage of cooperation opportunities from bilateral FTAs with individual partners such as Vietnam - Japan, Vietnam - Korea, as well as multilateral FTAs through regional organizations. such as ASEAN or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (CPTPP).

Promoting export expansion in Asia, Africa and Oceania is not only a great opportunity but also a challenge for Vietnam's economy. Although in recent times, Vietnam's export of goods to these markets has prospered and the market expansion space is still very large, there are also significant difficulties and limitations awaiting businesses.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade said that one of the biggest challenges is the protectionist stance, creating barriers for countries and territories importing Vietnamese goods. Besides the positive aspects of trade liberalization and the process of international economic integration, there still exist unilateral activities, sanctions, counterbalancing, creating restraint... in politics, economics and trade. These activities tend to become increasingly popular. Countries, from taking advantage of the good spirit of the WTO (World Trade Organization) to create fair competition between imported and domestically produced goods, have tended to turn to protection and restrictions. imported from abroad, even overprotected.

Among those protection measures, trade remedies have emerged as one of the legal and effective tools used by many WTO members. Due to exporting a lot to Asia - Africa and Oceania markets, Vietnam faces trade defense cases in these markets. According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, up to 14/24 countries in the Asia, Africa and Oceania market group have investigated 138/256 different trade defense cases against Vietnamese export goods. . The countries investigating the most are India, Türkiye, Australia, Indonesia, Philippines... In ASEAN alone, 4 countries Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand have investigated up to 48 trade defense cases with goods of ta. In Oceania, Australia has also investigated 18 cases with Vietnam.

At the conference, speakers from relevant units under the Ministry of Industry and Trade updated and exchanged information on the market situation, opportunities and challenges to promote the export of potential products to the Asian market. , Africa and Oceania; the situation of investigation, application and response to trade defense measures by countries; experience in coordinating and responding to trade defense measures from these markets./.