Ordinance on the Most favored nation in foreign trade
Ha Noi, June 27 (VNA)-- Viet Nam's first ever ordinance on the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) and the National Treatment (NT) in foreign trade will come into force from Sept. 1 this year.
By applying these two basic principles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in four key areas: commercial goods, commerical services, investment, and intellectual property, Viet Nam has made a significant step in its global integration.
The ordinance stipulates that MFN and NT will target Viet Nam's imports and exports, services and service suppliers from other countries, foreign invested projects and foreign investors, and intellectual property claimants who are either foreign organisations or individual foreigners.
The MFN and NT will be applied in the principle of mutual interests, emphasizes the ordinance.
However, the five-chapter, 24-article ordinance has not clarified concrete favourable conditions or the specific target industries or services, which, explains the new legal document, are provided for in other legal documents such as the Law on Import-Export Tariffs and the Foreign Investment Law.
Although this is the first time these two principles have been legalised in Viet Nam, they have long been recognised in its bilateral trade agreements, and investment protection and encouragement agreements with other countries.
In all the 41 investment protection and encouragement agreements Viet Nam has reached so far, the Government has pledged to grant fair, equal, and non-discriminatory treatment.
Viet Nam has already offered MFN treatment in 77 of the 81 bilateral trade agreements it has signed with other countries and territories so far, especially the one with the United States which included detailed conditions in line with the WTO rules.
However, these two principles have not yet been applied systematically, laywers remarked. The conditions differ in various agreements and not any one mentions the NT principle specifically, they said.--Enditem
