News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Vietnam President Signs U.S. Trade Pact

Date: December 06, 2001

"Vietnam President Signs U.S. Trade Pact

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's President Tran Duc Luong has signed into law the historic Vietnam-U.S. trade agreement, so giving effect to the pact, official media reported on Friday.

Economists say Vietnam will see the most immediate benefits from the trade agreement as tariffs on its exports are slashed to about four percent from 40 percent.

The Communist Party mouthpiece Nhan Dan (People) daily said Luong signed the bill on Tuesday to promulgate a resolution on the ratification by Vietnam's legislative body, the National Assembly, of the trade agreement.

The assembly on November 28 voted in favor of the pact. The United States ratified the bill in October.

The trade pact, which took years to negotiate and sixteen months to fully ratify after signing in July 2000, will finally remove Vietnam from a small group of states, including North Korea (news - web sites), Afghanistan (news - web sites), Serbia and Cuba, denied normal trade relations with the world's biggest market, the United States.

Earlier this year analysts said the trade pact could double Vietnam's annual exports to the United States to more than $1.0 billion within one or two years.

Local monopolies in telecoms and energy will have several years to improve efficiency as the agreement will only gradually open up Vietnam to U.S. service providers in a wide range of range of fields, including banking.

If properly implemented, diplomats say the pact should ease Hanoi's eventual accession to the World Trade Organization (news - web sites).

But that expectation has been tempered somewhat by the global economic downturn and the turmoil following the September 11 attacks on the United States. "