Impact of joining the World Trade Organization WTO on Vietnam's agricultural sector

That is the name of the workshop organized by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in collaboration with the Konrad-Adenauer Institute (Federal Republic of Germany) on April 18, 2008. This is one of many activities in a series of systematic research programs on the topic of Social Market Economy and the process of international economic integration of Vietnam that the two sides have cooperated on for many years. The workshop attracted many experts from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, research institutes, Vietnamese universities and scientists from the Federal Republic of Germany.

The presentations at the workshop focused on the main contents: challenges and opportunities for the agricultural sector when Vietnam joins the WTO; recommendations, solutions and lessons learned from other countries. The workshop recorded many new and valuable opinions.

* Agriculture - The key to stability and development?

According to Associate Professor Dr. Tran Nguyen Tuyen (Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration), solving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the context of Vietnam joining the WTO is a particularly important issue. Sustainable agricultural development is a factor ensuring the development of an independent and autonomous economy: “In the short term as well as in the long term, the agricultural economy plays a very important role in the national economy, not only for our country, which is implementing industrialization and modernization, but also for developed industrial countries. Paying attention to investment in agricultural development is of special importance in terms of economy, politics, society and environmental protection... Investment in agricultural development is a measure to ensure social justice in the process of industrialization and modernization”.

Also agreeing with this view, in the discussion "Some thoughts on the impact of the WTO on Vietnam's agriculture today", MSc. Tong Van Chung (University of Social Sciences and Humanities) stated: In Vietnam, agriculture is the main livelihood of more than 60% of the population. Since 1989, Vietnam has been an agricultural exporting country, of which rice accounts for a large proportion. Agricultural production has a direct impact on more than 2/3 of farming households, of which 44% are poor and at risk of falling back into poverty. With such an important position, agriculture is the key to stability and development for the Vietnamese people in general and rural areas in particular.

* Vietnam's agricultural sector when joining the WTO: Many opportunities but also many challenges

The presentations all affirmed that joining the WTO creates huge impacts on Vietnam's agricultural sector, even creating big shocks, fundamental and comprehensive changes in agricultural structure and production thinking.

According to MSc. Tong Van Chung, the most noteworthy thing about Vietnamese agriculture when joining the WTO is that the market will expand for traditional export products, and at the same time, Vietnam will have the opportunity to access the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism, helping to avoid unfair lawsuits that Vietnam has encountered before when exporting goods to foreign markets. At the same time, being a member of the WTO means that Vietnam will continue to attract foreign investment and have an equal voice with other members when the WTO discusses common issues. The biggest challenge is that Vietnamese agriculture has low competitiveness, has to face export subsidies from rich countries, and Vietnam has no experience in implementing the terms of its commitments... "All difficulties cannot be resolved overnight but require time and support from all parties to minimize these risks".

Associate Professor Dr. Hoang Phuoc Hiep (Ministry of Justice) commented: Joining the WTO will bring many positive impacts to Vietnam. First of all, it will create a stable, long-term, transparent and public legal framework that can predict risks in agricultural trade for producers. On the other hand, it will help Vietnamese producers penetrate the large agricultural market of the international trade community, creating opportunities for Vietnamese farmers to change their thinking in a modern way. Finally, joining the WTO will create an equal competitive environment for Vietnamese producers as well as countries participating in the domestic and international agricultural market, thereby promoting production, contributing to economic growth, hunger eradication and poverty reduction. Mr. Hiep also emphasized that the impact of joining the WTO will strongly affect the Vietnamese legal system, including agricultural laws. “The review of legal documents shows that there are some legal regulations that are not consistent with Vietnam's commitments to the WTO... Joining the WTO has raised the possibility of having to continue research to amend, supplement or issue new legal documents in the agricultural sector.”

* Solutions for Vietnamese agriculture: Viewed from many perspectives

According to Dr. Juergen Wiemann (German Development Institute), Vietnamese agriculture still has many limitations before the threshold of the WTO game, requiring the State to have many measures to overcome them with "tools suitable for the WTO spirit". Dr. Wiemann proposed a number of suggested solutions such as: creating non-agricultural jobs in rural areas; the government and associations must provide more information on market access, information on export product standards... to overcome the situation of farmers lacking information leading to no strategic production orientation; increasing investment in agricultural research as well as promoting the results to agricultural producers; improving the provision of banking services in rural areas to overcome the situation of capital poverty, lack of credit capacity in rural areas causing difficulties for investment and specialization in production; developing a social security system to insure farmers against crop failures or low income; Promote the competitiveness of agricultural service industry to fundamentally improve the capacity of Vietnamese agriculture; improve the skills of workers and the management level of agricultural facilities...

From a communication perspective, Associate Professor Dr. Le Thanh Binh (Hanoi National University) emphasized the need to develop agricultural extension communication with the aim of creating and sharing information to serve agricultural and rural development based on farmers' needs. According to Associate Professor Dr. Le Thanh Binh, if agricultural extension communication is done well, farmers will be more proactive, more attached to science and technology, and have a more comprehensive understanding of the production, preservation, processing, and consumption markets of agricultural products according to WTO standards... People will have the opportunity to become familiar with a lot of new knowledge, so their level will be raised.

Although coming from different perspectives, the presentations at the workshop all affirmed that Vietnam's accession to the WTO is a major and new event for Vietnam's agricultural sector. Although this poses many great difficulties requiring Vietnam's agriculture to make changes and breakthroughs, it is still a necessary change in a positive direction, for the common development and integration with other economies in the world.