Exporters face technical barriers in EU

The Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency organized a trade conference between EU and Vietnamese businesses to discuss opportunities and challenges in the EU market. Many businesses have expressed concerns about technical barriers in EU market as given their low capacity to meet the requirements.

Tran Tuyet Lan, General Director of the Center for Research, Linkage and Development of Crafts (Craft Link) said that the center mainly sells traditional products of ethnic minorities. Therefore, to achieve certificates of origin required by the EU, the center must ask the people’s committees to prove that these products are processed and produced in locality.

In addition, the complex customs procedures may lead to the late delivery and affect the center’s prestige and workers’ livelihood.

According to Material and Complete Equipment Export-Import Corporation’s Deputy Head of Sales Department Nguyen Cong Danh, import duties of machinery and equipment in the EU market currently are not high and many items are enjoying the tariff rate of zero percent. Therefore, the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement will not have many impacts on machinery and equipment.

However they will face fiercer competition from some nations such as Russia and India. In addition, the EU market has high requirements on product quality, corporate social responsibility and environmental protection.

Tran Ngoc Quan, Deputy Director of the Europe Market Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade expressed his worry on competitiveness of Vietnamese businesses. Opportunities are provided but the success requires more efforts of Vietnamese companies to reorganize production and improve capacity to meet the requirements of importers.

To help business overcome these challenges, the Vietnamese government and the EU have approved many cooperation programs to improve competitiveness. Some projects have been implemented and have proved its efficiency. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is promoting the simplification of administrative procedures, contributing to creating the most favorable conditions for businesses.

Many EU manufacturers have come to Vietnam to seek cooperation opportunities in machinery and equipment. Therefore, businesses should be supported to improve credit access with preferential interest rates for purchasing machinery and equipment.

More measures should be taken to build brands for traditional and potential products. Since the fact that many products of Vietnam are being exported under a foreign brand or in contrast, foreign exporters are exploiting Vietnamese brands to export to the US and EU. Vietnamese businesses need to pay more attention and invest adequately on brand protection.

Viet Nga / ven