Vietnam’s trade environment much better, says WEF

Vietnam’s trade environment has changed for the better, according to The Global Enabling Trade Report 2010 released late last week by the World Economic Forum.

“Vietnam realised one of the biggest improvements in the ranking this year, climbing by 18 places to the 71st position.

“The country’s accession to the WTO in 2007 supported this move, as tariffs were lowered and the country’s exporters gained better access to markets of other members,” said Margareta Drzeniek Hanouz, senior economist of the Global Competitiveness Network and co-editor of the report.

According to the report, Vietnam’s significant liberalisation of trade in goods and services over the phase-in period to 2012 is reflected in the Enabling Trade Index in Vietnam’s improved ranking in the market access component (50th).

Despite improvement, Vietnam’s tariff schedule remains complex in some respects, said WEF report. The area of biggest concern, however, is in border administration.

The report said Vietnam’s recent efforts to streamline the efficiency of the country’s customs led to a 10-notch improvement in the related category, albeit from a low base (107th) and 54th position for efficiency of import-export procedures. Meanwhile, the low rank of 104th for the transparency of border administration indicates room for improvement in this area.

The report added trade could be further enabled by upgrading Vietnam’s transport infrastructure, which is in a dire state (103rd). Besides, low airport density (104th position), poor road quality (95th), and insufficiently developed port facilities (93rd) indicate that the booming economy is straining the country’s infrastructure.

The assessment of transport services is much more positive. Vietnam improves its scores on all indicators composing this category and ranks 31st.

Finally, Vietnam achieves mixed results in the business environment component (64th).

Openness to foreign participation is limited because of the low prevalence of foreign ownership (102nd) and limited participation in multilateral trade rules (102nd), and despite the openness toward FDI (26th) and foreign labour (46th).

The Global Enabling Trade Report 2010 covering 125 economies worldwide is launched at a time when trade volumes recover from the deepest post-war slump. Published for the third year in a row, the report presents a resource for dialogue and provides a yardstick of the extent to which economies have in place the necessary attributes for enabling trade and where improvements are most needed.

TBKTSG

Tags: Vietnam trade, Vietnam trade environment

Posted by VBN on May 28 2010. Filed under Import-Export. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry