EU, Vietnam seek to sign bilateral free trade deal
(VOVWORLD) -Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh’s visit to Brussels last weekend focused on economic and trade cooperation between Vietnam and the European Union and settle pending issues to push for early signing and ratification of their bilateral Free Trade Agreement.
 The signing of an agreement on EU financing a program to help Vietnam's energy development policies (Photo: Kim Chung/VNA) |
During a meeting with EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malstrom, both sides pledged continued efforts to agree on remaining points of the deal and the necessary measures to be taken in order to conclude the FTA by early next year.
During the visit, Minister Anh and Stefano Manservisi, head of the European Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development signed an agreement on financing a program to help energy development policies, which uses the EU’s ODA. The EU will provide a non-refundable aid worth 108 million euros for 23 smaller projects on electricity supply for rural, mountainous, and island areas in 23 provinces from 2018 to 2020.