Europe - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement: opportunities & challenges

On June 30th, 2019, Vietnam and EU sign an Agreement, named Europe - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, according to EuroCham Vietnam "Once the agreement enters into force, it will set in train a gradual elimination of almost all tariffs on goods traded between the EU and Vietnam, opening up new opportunities for investors and consumers on both sides."
Follow up to the event, EuroCham Vietnam hosted an event discuss deeper about the Agreement and its affects on the Enterprises activities, in which, Mr. Nguyen Hai Minh, EuroCham Vietnam Vice Chairman and Mazars Vietnam Tax Partner shared his view on the Agreement, opportunities & challenges (in Tax & Customs) that it brought to Vietnamese companies.

He indicated, the EU is the 5th largest FDI partner in term of total stock (US$1.1 billion in 2018), the EU invested US$23.927 billion with 2133 projects in Vietnam (2018) which active in all 18 economic sectors and present in 52 out of the 63 provinces and municipalities. And with the increasing of import and export value between Vietnam & the EU every year, the Agreement is a great step to help boost these two economics to develop in a faster pace.

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Next, Mr. Minh share more about the Agreement, its process toward elimination of Tariff and the transitional period.

Diagram 1_EVFTA

The main part of Mr. Minh presentation shared the opportunities on Export & Import to Enterprises and the Challenges that they have to face, including: Domestic competition, Rules of Origin requirements and High standard of EU import. Mr. Minh especially emphasis the Challenges that come from Import duty & Customs procedures and the connection between Customs and transfer pricing.

The presentation of Mr. Minh had triggered many questions and concerns from enterprises who joined the event in the last part of Q&A session.

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We would like to thank you EuroCham Vietnam for inviting our Tax partner to the event, it had been such an inspiring and valuable event for both Enterprises and the experts participated.

We hope the sharing of Mr. Nguyen Hai Minh was sufficient enough to help you understand the Agreement to effectively apply it to your business activities.

Please find the detail presentation below and should you need our support in Tax Advisory Services, please contact our experts following the below information.

Speaker

Document

Mazars Vietnam_​EVFTA & Customs_​July 2019