A workshop was held in Hanoi on October 27 to discuss trade remedies - a tool to protect the interests of domestic production industries amid Vietnam’s ongoing integration into the world economy.

Addressing the workshop, Director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI)’s Centre for World Trade Organisation and Economic Integration, Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, said that with 13 existing free trade agreements (FTAs), in particular the EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA), Vietnam is opening up its market to goods from 51 partner countries.

Substantial imports, however, are likely to cause significant damage to the long-term interests of a number of domestic industries.

The workshop aimed at equipping businesses and associations with the skills needed to use trade defence instruments and to provide a venue for them to offer their opinions on the new legal framework for the field, such as the draft scheme on improving trade defence capacity and the draft circular on the implementation of the EVFTA, along with detailed guidelines on the process of filing complaints and joining in trade defence lawsuits, she said.

Director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Trade Remedies Authority, Le Trieu Dung, said trade defence instruments play a significant role in protecting the legitimate rights and interests of Vietnamese goods as well as manufacturing industries.

He introduced the draft circular guiding the implementation of the EVFTA on trade defence, saying that it applies trade remedies in the transitional period as well as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures.