The President of the European Commission (EC), José Manuel Durão Barroso, who began his two-day visit to Vietnam on Monday, has said his call is aimed at finalizing a Free Trade Agreement between Vietnam and the European Union (EU), among other important issues.

>> EC President to visit Vietnam next week to boost bilateral ties>> Vietnam urges EU to finalize free-trade agreement

The EC president made the statement in a recent interview with the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) in Brussels about the bilateral ties between Vietnam and the EU, ahead of his visit to the Southeast Asian country at the invitation of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. The purpose of the visit is to consolidate the results both sides have achieved and to launch and reinforce new areas of political and sectoral cooperation, as well as to make progress in the two’s next big project which is the finalization of a Free Trade Agreement, Barroso told the VNA.  “This is my second visit to Vietnam as President of the European Commission. Since I first came to Vietnam in November 2007, our bilateral relations have developed vigorously and comprehensively,” he said. The signature of the new-generation EU-Vietnam Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) in 2012, whose negotiations were launched and concluded by Barroso and Prime Minister Dung, was a milestone in EU-Vietnam relations, he added.  

He also said the trade and economic relations between Vietnam and the EU are already very good, but the two sides should do much more by completing the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement. “Together with the PCA, the FTA would be the second pillar of our relationship,” the EC president said.  He affirmed that negotiations are making good progress and Vietnam and the EU expect to conclude them in the near future. “Such agreement, once concluded, will increase opportunities for Vietnamese businesses, granting preferential market access to Vietnamese exports to the EU,” he stressed.  The EU is now Vietnam’s largest export market and second largest two-way trade partner, President Barroso said, adding that bilateral trade is growing by almost 20 percent year on year.

“In 2013, the EU-Vietnam two way trade reached €27 billion, or US$37 billion,” he said. The EC leader also said his visit to Vietnam is intended to reiterate the EU’s commitment to Vietnam’s development as well as political and economic reforms.

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