Hanoi (VNA) - The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-PacificPartnership (CPTPP) is opening up many opportunities for Vietnam’sagricultural products to reach global markets. However, agricultural productsare the most vulnerable commodity when it comes to trade disputes.

Therefore,it was necessary to disseminate information on commitments in the CPTPP andimplement a comprehensive and timely action plan to ensure long-term benefitsfor people, businesses and consumers, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran TuanAnh said at a conference held in Hanoi on July 2.

As a newgeneration free trade agreement, the CPTPP is expected to have a comprehensiveimpact on Vietnam's economic and social activities. In particular, it willcreate opportunities to expand the market for many sectors (includingagricultural products), especially the markets where Vietnam has no bilateralfree trade agreements (FTA) such as Canada, Mexico, Peru and Australia thanksto preferential tariffs.

However,when the tariff barriers are removed, the technical barriers will be morestringent. The CPTPP is recognised as the agreement with the highest standards,most comprehensive and balanced in the agricultural sector, so the requirementis to improve agricultural cultivation and goods in line with internationalstandards.

Therefore,the CPTPP poses many challenges to the consumption and distribution ofVietnamese agricultural products.

Accordingto Thao Xuan Sung, Chairman of the Vietnam Farmers' Association, despite anumber of achievements in Vietnam’s agriculture sector, the quality ofagricultural production in general and the consumption and distribution offarm produce in particular are still limited and even weak.

In fact,the ratio of raw agricultural exports is still high; the quality and the numberof agricultural value chains remain low; the way to organise agriculturalproduction in the value chain is still sketchy and there is a lot of barriersbetween the domestic market and the world market. These are obstacles faced byVietnamese agricultural products exported to the world market, especially largemarkets, requiring high quality.

Under theimpact of FTAs, Sung said that the domestic agricultural market was witnessingincreasing competitive pressure due to the increase in the number ofagricultural products imported from foreign countries.

Amongmany agricultural products that Vietnam is still able to produce with goodquality and quantity, it is difficult to compete with imported goods in termsof price and brand reputation.

Under theCPTPP, Vietnam’s agricultural business community is putting a lot of faith, aswell as hope for large export markets, but there are many businesses wonderingabout competitive pressure when the production capacity of enterprises is stillvery limited.
In orderto make good use of opportunities offered by the CPTPP, Pham Quynh Mai, DeputyDirector of the MoIT’s Multilateral Trade Policy Department, recommendedVietnamese enterprises actively explore information about the CPTPP, especiallyinformation on tariff preferences on those products which Vietnam has strongexport potential.

Enterprisesshould change their business thinking in the new context, putting pressure oncompetition as a driving force for innovation and development, she said.

Inaddition, enterprises also needed to actively co-operate with the partnermarkets of the agreement to strongly attract direct investment in Vietnam inorder to make full use of capital and technology transfer from largecorporations. This was also a good opportunity for businesses to participatemore deeply in the regional and global supply chains, Mai added.-VNA