Vietnam looks set to join the WTO after Members were able to resolve their last remaining quibbles about its accession process during a week of discussions that ended on 13 October, according to reports from Vietnamese state news sources.
Upon his return to Hanoi two days later, Vietnamese Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen told Than Nien Daily that the WTO General Council would hold a special meeting around 6-8 November to ratify the Southeast Asian nation’s membership.
Last week, Norwegian Ambassador Eirik Glenne, who chairs the working party on Vietnam’s accession, had set 13 October as the deadline for sorting out any unsolved problems (see BRIDGES Weekly, 11 October 2006). Tuyen said that they managed to resolve the toughest obstacle — differences on Vietnam’s special consumption tax on alcohol and beer. He acknowledged that the existing duty, which is based on alcohol content rather the type of beverage, appeared to fall foul of WTO rules.
Tuyen said that the members of the working party would now take a week to verify the documents that will form the country’s package of accession commitments, before meeting again with Vietnam on 25-26 October.
If all goes according to plan, the Vietnamese negotiating team will submit a report to the National Assembly for ratification between 10-14 November, just ahead of the 18-19 November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi. A month after ratification, Vietnam would become a full Member of the WTO, thus ending negotiations that have lasted over 11 years.
"Rocky road to WTO smoother now: trade minister," THAN NIEN, 16 October 2006; "WTO to okay Vietnam’s entry," ASSOCIATED PRESS, 16 October 2006.
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES POINT TO PRIVATE STANDARDS AT SPS CTTEE
At the 11-12 October meeting of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), a number of developing countries highlighted the impacts of private sector standards, such as supermarket requirements, on their exports.
St Vincent and the Grenadines — supported by Argentina, Ecuador, Jamaica and Peru — had raised the issue for the first time in the SPS Committee at its June 2005 meeting, citing as an example the requirements for exporting bananas and other products to European supermarkets imposed by the Euro-Retailer Produce Working Group (EurepGap; see BRIDGES Weekly, 6 July 2005).
At the October meeting, St Vincent and the Grenadines, joined by Argentina, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya and South Africa, reiterated its concerns. While welcoming the information session with UNCTAD and EurepGap ahead of meeting, it called for a more systematic discussion of these issues in the Committee.
To support their case, some Members pointed to Article 13 of the SPS Agreement which calls on countries to implement measures to ensure compliance of non-governmental standards with the Agreement’s provisions.
Committee Chair Juan Antonio Dorantes Sanchez of Mexico suggested that Members provide concrete examples for discussion.
The issue of private standards has also come up in the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). While SPS measures related to food safety and animal health are often implemented by government bodies, many voluntary schemes that would be covered by the TBT Agreement are being imposed by private actors. In this context, the proliferation of eco-labels in developed country market has attracted particular concern from developing country exporters. Similar to the SPS Agreement, the TBT Agreement’s Article 4 requires governments to ensure that national and regional private standardising bodies comply with the Agreement’s provisions.
The next meeting of the SPS Committee has been tentatively scheduled for 7-8 March.
ICTSD reporting; "Sri Lankan cinnamon’s future brightens, SPS Committee told," WTO NEWS, 11-12 October 2006; "Private sector standards discussed as SPS Committee adopts two reports," WTO NEWS, 29-30 June 2005.
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