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GENEVA : World Trade Organisation negotiators aim to give Vietnam a green light to join the global body in early October, a senior diplomat said.
However, they still have work to do if the Asian nation is to achieve its longstanding goal and conclude a painstaking, 11-year process, Norwegian trade ambassador Eirik Glenne said.
Glenne, who is the chairman of the ruling General Council of the 149-nation WTO and also steers Vietnam's membership talks, told a negotiating session that he aimed to secure a final deal in time for the Council session scheduled for 10-11 October.
But he cautioned that a lot of work remained to be completed.
"The end of a long negotiation like this one is always difficult and rushed, but I know that Vietnam and you the members are all prepared to work with me in making that extra effort to get this done," he said.
Prospective members of the WTO, which sets the framework of global commerce, usually have to go through years of talks with current members to ensure that their trade regimes tally with WTO rules.
Glenne said that Vietnam needed to come up with more information to show how it would comply, in areas ranging from tariffs and import quotas to farm subsidies and services market liberalisation.
Viet Nam's Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen said his country saw membership as crucial.
The reforms required along the way, as well as membership itself, would fuel Vietnam's economic growth and would also make a "modest" contribution to the expansion of the global economy, he told the session.
Vietnam won praise for its efforts from ambassadors representing the 64 current WTO members who have been taking part in the Vietnam membership talks over the past decade.
Only a handful of concerns remained, including Vietnamese duties on imports of spirits and beers.
Besides negotiating with WTO members as a bloc, prospective members also have to clinch bilateral deals with trading nations that seek them.
At the end of May, Vietnam cleared a crucial hurdle when it reached a bilateral accord with the United States.
Following approval from the WTO's General Council, Vietnam would have to ratify its accession deal and then wait another 30 days before becoming a full member.
Vietnam is facing a self-imposed ticking clock: it hopes to join the WTO before Hanoi hosts an APEC summit in November which US President George W. Bush is expected to attend. - AFP/de
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