EU urges Vietnam to promote green exports under free trade pact

The European Union expects Vietnam to promote green export initiatives in taking advantage of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, a senior EU trade official said Monday.

“This FTA is a new-generation pact that aims at boosting green trade and fully supporting sustainable development goals,” Bartosz Cieleszynski, Deputy Head of Trade Section, EU Delegation to Vietnam, said at a seminar on green product exports.

The seminar was held under the auspices of the Green Economy Forum & Exhibition (GEFE) 2022 being held in Ho Chi Minh City.

The EVFTA, which took effect in 2020, is in line with green and sustainable consumption trends in the world and therefore, will help Vietnam pursue sustainable development goals, he said.

“I call on Vietnamese exporters to get familiar with consumer choices and expectations to provide high-quality, green and environmentally friendly products. The world is changing fast,” he added.

The market for green products is growing significantly faster than conventional ones and this presents important opportunities for developing and least-developed countries, a representative of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.

One tool that Vietnamese exporters can use to exploit such opportunities is the Swiss Import Promotion Program, or Sippo, a well-established mandate of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), said Clement Graf, worldwide head of the program.

He said Sippo has identified several areas in which Vietnam can optimize local natural resource use with its skilled labor force to produce higher value added products including wood, and value-added textiles, Graf said.

Mathieu Lamolle, a senior advisor with the United Nations’ International Trade Center (ITC), spoke about the challenges in meeting green export requirements and in shifting towards green production for export.

The seminar was organized by the Trade Promotion Agency under Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade.