Vietnamese Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, on behalf of the Vietnamese Government, has sent official announcement in a letter to the Head of the forum’s Secretariat.

The move paves the way for Viet Nam to sign the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

Joining the forum manifests the Vietnamese Government’s commitments to realize the guideline on tax transparency and information exchange, thus improving the country’s international prestige among foreign partners and investors.

This also marks an important step in extensive integration process of the Vietnamese economy in general and the finance sector in particular.

The move is expected to help guanrantee effective implementation of Viet Nam’s commitments enshrined in its inked free trade agreements and strengthen multilateral tax cooperation in the region and the world.

The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, a multilateral framework for tax transparency and information sharing, was established in 2000.

The Global Forum currently has 158 members participating on an equal footing, together with 15 international organisations participating as observers. All member jurisdictions have committed to implementing the international standard on exchange of information on request (EOIR).  The Global Forum conducts rigorous assessments of compliance with this standard, according to the elements set out in its Terms of Reference.

In addition, over 100 countries and jurisdictions have committed to implementing the new standard on AEOI. Work is currently underway to implement this Standard, with the first exchanges occurring on a very ambitious timeline of 2017 and 2018.