Enterprises need to pay attention to the rules of origin for integration

Producing wooden products for export at an enterprise in Vinh Cuu district.

With participating of Vietnam in many new-generation free trade agreements (FTAs), issues related to the origin of goods need to be paid special attention by businesses, especially for products in the list of eligible tax incentives.

Mr Nguyen Huu Nam, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Ho Chi Minh City branch emphasized that the origin rule is one of the biggest barriers for businesses to take advantage of the incentives from the Association The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), etc. Origin rule is considered as one of the important keys to open the door for Vietnamese goods to penetrate deeply into the potential EU, CPTPP, and RCEP markets.

Besides, in order to integrate deeply, Vietnamese enterprises will have to find ways to overcome strict regulations on: food safety and hygiene, epidemiological hygiene, code of conduct, regulations on protection environment, product traceability, localization rate, processing technology, etc Since then, enterprises actively research and understand agreements in FTAs ​​that Vietnam participates in such as: EVFTA, CPTPP …, especially agreements related to business fields of enterprises, preferential tariffs for goods in each specific market.

Mrs Hoang Ngoc Oanh, an expert from the Vietnam Association of Economic and Trade Information and Consulting shared that, when participating in major agreements such as EVFTA, the factors of quality, origin and product design are prerequisite factors that enterprises must have. Therefore, in order to enhance competitive advantages when export to the European market, domestic goods need to pay more attention to factors related to sustainable development including: environmental protection factors, ensure the regulations on labor and sociality in production and business...

Understanding technical barriers to trade

According to experts, in international trade, technical barriers to trade (TBT) are essentially technical standards and regulations that a country applies to imported goods and/or procedures for assessing the conformity of imported goods with those standards and technical regulations.

These technical measures are  necessary and reasonable in principle to protect important interests such as human health, environment, security, etc Therefore, each member country of EVFTA, UKVFTA, CPTPP, RCEP … establish and maintain a system of separate technical measures for their own goods and for imported goods.

Mr Nguyen Huu Nam shared more that, in fact, technical measures can be potential barriers to international trade because they can be used for the purpose of protecting domestic production, make difficulty for foreign goods to enter the importing country's market. Besides TBTs, export markets in new generation FTAs also apply animal and plant quarantine measures, especially for agricultural and livestock products, etc These are the regulations, conditions, mandatory requirements affecting international trade in order to protect the lives and health of people, livestock, animals and plants by ensuring food safety and/or preventing the inrush of diseases of plant and animal origin.​