The Ministry of Industry and Trade is synthesizing opinions from relevant ministries and branches to complete the dossier to submit to the Government for approval of the Vietnam - UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) so that this FTA can soon take effect.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is completing documents to submit to the Government for approval of the CEPA Agreement.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is synthesizing opinions from relevant ministries and branches to complete the dossier to submit to the Government for approval of the Vietnam - UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) so that this FTA can soon take effect.
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| After CEPA is ratified, it will bring Vietnam's total effective FTAs to 17, in addition, there are a number of FTAs under negotiation. |
This is information shared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade regarding the negotiation and signing of FTAs of Vietnam.
Specifically, for the two recently signed FTAs, including the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between Vietnam and the UAE (CEPA), signed on October 28 last year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is currently synthesizing opinions from relevant ministries and branches to complete the dossier to submit to the Government for approval of CEPA so that the Agreement can soon take effect.
As for the Vietnam-Israel Free Trade Agreement (VIFTA), signed in July 2023. In Resolution No. 190/NQ-CP dated October 14, 2024, the Government set the effective date of VIFTA as October 15, 2024. Regarding Israel, Israel has issued Note No. EI.01.24/1/111 announcing the effective date of the VIFTA Agreement as November 17, 2024.
After consulting with ministries and branches on the draft Government Submission, the Ministry of Industry and Trade submitted Government Submission No. 1562/TTr-BCT dated March 3, 2025 to the Government on amending the effective date of this Agreement.
Regarding a series of FTAs under negotiation, including: Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and EFTA, updating the latest progress, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that at the end of last year, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien signed a letter to 4 Ministers of EFTA countries requesting to soon organize the 17th Negotiation Session to promote the negotiation process with EFTA countries with the goal of soon concluding negotiations on this Agreement.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has received a letter from Ms. Cecilie Myrseth, Minister of Trade and Industry of Norway, President of EFTA, confirming that the EFTA countries have received the letter from Vietnam and agreed to the proposal to hold the 17th Negotiation Session in Geneva, Switzerland. The two sides have agreed on the time to hold this Negotiation Session in May 2025.
Regarding new negotiations and upgrading of FTAs within the ASEAN framework, progress is also being accelerated.
Regarding the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA), one of ASEAN's most important priorities, ASEAN countries agreed to allocate appropriate resources to basically complete the upgrade negotiations according to the set roadmap in March 2025, towards signing the second Protocol amending the ATIGA Agreement in 2025.
Since the launch of negotiations in 2022, the countries have conducted 13 upgraded negotiation sessions, focusing on traditional trade issues such as transparency, handling non-tariff barriers, trade facilitation to further promote intra-ASEAN trade, as well as emerging issues, such as: trade exchanges during times of crisis; connecting supply chains; circular economy; regulations on food export restrictions; micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs)...
Since the beginning of 2025, the countries have conducted 1 Head of Delegation level negotiation session and 2 Ministerial level negotiation sessions.
At this point, the countries have completed 89% of the work progress, including the conclusion of negotiations on 10 Chapters, including: Chapter on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME); Chapter on Economic and Technical Cooperation (ECOTECH); Chapter on General Exceptions and Security Exceptions; Chapter on Standards, Regulations and Conformity Assessment Procedures; Chapter on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS).
With the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), negotiations to upgrade the ACFTA have been declared to be basically concluded in 2024.
Since the beginning of 2025, countries have been discussing a number of remaining issues to be able to complete and implement the signing of the Protocol amending this Agreement in 2025.
The remaining issues include: Dispute Resolution Provisions in the Digital Economy Chapter; Legal review of the upgraded negotiated chapters; Cross-cutting provisions related to many chapters/negotiation contents.
Regarding the negotiation to review and upgrade the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA), the Joint Committee (JC) of the AITIGA Agreement and the Sub-Committees conducted 04 negotiation sessions to review and upgrade this Agreement in 2024.
In 2025, ASEAN countries and India plan to hold 4 negotiation sessions (so far 1 session has been held in Jakarta, Indonesia in February 2025) to basically complete negotiations in 2025 as the target of ASEAN and Indian Senior Leaders.
Completing the basic negotiation to review and upgrade the AITIGA Agreement is also one of Malaysia's priority economic cooperation initiatives (PED) for its ASEAN Chairmanship year 2025.
"Up to now, the progress of negotiations to review and upgrade AITIGA has been relatively limited due to the large differences in viewpoints between the two sides, especially in the field of market opening (about 15.7% of the total number of sections and 10% of the total number of provisions have been completed)," said the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Accordingly, ASEAN countries believe that the Negotiation Committee will need to hold more meetings than planned in order to basically conclude negotiations by the end of 2025.
The FTA with the slowest negotiation progress is the ASEAN-Canada Free Trade Agreement ( ACaFTA). This FTA officially started negotiations in September 2021 with the initial goal of completing negotiations in 2023. However, based on the actual negotiation process, ASEAN and Canada agreed to postpone the basic date of concluding negotiations on the ACaFTA Agreement to 2025.
So far, the two sides have only agreed on about 20.5% of the workload and have not yet negotiated market opening.
The ACaFTA negotiations have achieved certain results so far, but still face some difficulties such as large differences in the level of ambition and policy between the parties, and difficulties in arranging meeting schedules in the context of many other priority contents taking place in parallel such as negotiations to upgrade the ATIGA Agreement, the DEFA Agreement, and the AITIGA Agreement.
Based on the above-mentioned difficulties, the ASEAN Secretariat proposed that the ASEAN Ministers direct the ACaFTA Negotiation Committee to further promote the negotiation process, aiming at the basic goal of completing the Agreement in 2025.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/bo-cong-thuong-dang-hoan-thien-ho-so-trinh-chinh-phu-phe-duyet-hiep-dinh-cepa-d255189.html
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