Prospects for Vietnam-Australia trade after TPP

Trade between Vietnam and Australia is expected to see strong growth once the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement – which involves the two of them and 10 other countries – comes into effect.

According to the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia, the two nations had similar benefits and approaches during the TPP negotiation process. Australia carried out numerous initiatives to accelerate the completion of the world’s largest free trade agreement while helping Vietnam in its international integration.

Vietnam and Australia are mutually important trade partners. From 2005-2014, trade posted an average growth rate of 7.83 percent annually, doubling to over 6 billion USD in 2014 from 3 billion USD in 2005.

Australia is now the eighth biggest importer and 12th biggest exporter of Vietnam while the Southeast Asian country is Australia’s 14th largest importer and exporter.

Under the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade agreement, which enters into force on January 1, 2010, Australia and New Zealand will remove taxes imposed on all Vietnamese products exported to the two countries by 2020. From 2015-2019, 96.3 percent of export tariffs will be decreased to zero, while the remaining 3.7 percent will remain at 5-10 percent, mainly on insect pesticides, leather, cloth, machines and equipment.

With the freshly-reached TPP, both Vietnam and Australia play a central role in the value chain of the Asian-Pacific region, which will boost their bilateral trade, production and investment.

Regulations on trade and customs facilitation and transparency will create favourable conditions to increase trade while compatible investment and intellectual property principles will help facilitate Australian investments in Vietnam.-VNA