Vietnam and the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have made progress in a number of issues during their 6th round of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations.

Meeting in Sochi, Russia, from June 16-20, working groups of Vietnam and the Customs Union have set to solve pending issues to complete the content of the agreement by the end of 2014 as scheduled.

Eight groups worked very hard on Trade in Goods, Services, Investment and Movement of Natural Persons, Rules of Origin, Government procurement, safeguard Measures; Customs Cooperation, Trade Facilitation, Intellectual Property, and Institutional Provisions.

On the last day of their talks on June 20, both sides completed the wording of chapters on Trade in Goods, and Government Procurement, and narrowed differences in the content of chapters on Customs Cooperation, Rules of Origin, and Intellectual Property.

They said they need more time to discuss chapters on Rules of Origin, Open markets for Trade in Goods, Trade in services, Investment, and Movement of Natural Persons, in order to share a common approach that will ensure balanced interest of both sides.

Chief negotiators, Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and Eurasian Economic Commission Trade Minister Andrey Slepnev hailed the progress both sides had made, describing it as a decisive factor in concluding the negotiations later this year.

They assigned their working groups to exchange views on pending issues to be examined at the upcoming round to be held in Russia from September 15-19.-VNA