According to the website of Bloomberg News Agency on December 11, Vietnam and the United Kingdom have reached a free trade agreement, and 99% of tariffs between the two countries will be lifted in seven years.
According to the report, the trade ministers of the two countries said in a joint statement on the 11th that Vietnam will receive export tariff reductions of 114 million pounds (about $151 million) by the time the agreement is fully implemented.
The UK will save £36 million on its exports.
Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade Chen Junying said that the two sides have been negotiating the agreement since August 2018. The United Kingdom will leave the European Common Market after December 31 this year, when Vietnam’s trade agreement with the European Union will no longer apply to the United Kingdom.
The new agreement between Vietnam and the United Kingdom will take effect on January 1, 2021.
The trade ministers of the two countries said in a statement: “The United Kingdom and Vietnam have made strategic commitments to global trade and the free flow of capital and investment.
The bilateral free trade agreements ensure the continuity of our fast-growing and dynamic trade relations, which is crucial.”
Britain is Vietnam’s third largest trading partner in Europe.
The Southeast Asian country exported about £4.6 billion worth of goods to the United Kingdom last year, and British companies exported more than £600 million worth of goods to Vietnam, the joint statement said.
In the first 10 months of the year, bilateral trade volume fell by 15% due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, according to an article on the Vietnamese government website.
The report noted that the day before the announcement of the agreement with Vietnam, the United Kingdom and Singapore had just signed a similar agreement to ensure trade continuity.
In a statement on the 10th, the British Secretary of State for International Trade Elizabeth Truss said that the agreement with Singapore and Vietnam will not only bring billions of pounds worth of trade, but also “will pave the way for a new digital partnership and accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”.
“This will leverage the UK’s strengths, and we will be a technology and digital trade center where influence can reach far away from national borders, which will define our role in the world for decades to come,” she said.
