(VOVworld) - Vietnam’s 90 million consumers and growing number of middle-class households make it a potential market for agricultural, industrial and service products from the European Union (EU). EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom made the statement on Monday while announcing the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) document.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom. (Photo: AFP)

Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom signed an announcement on the official conclusion of negotiations on the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) in Brussels on December 2, 2015.
Negotiations for the pact started and wound up in the context of growing relations between the two sides, especially in economics and trade. The EUVFTA is expected to bring enormous economic benefits for both Vietnam and the EU due to their highly supplementary and less directly competitive import-export structure.

The EU is Vietnam’s second largest trade partner and one of Vietnam’s biggest export markets. Two-way trade shot up to 36.8 billion USD in 2014 from 17.75 billion USD in 2010. In the first half of 2015, two-way trade was 19.4 billion USD, 11 percent higher than in the same period in 2014. The agreement will be translated into all languages in the EU before being submitted to the European Council and the Parliament for approval.