Agence France Presse

Hanoi, March 2:

Vietnam might have to give up its ambition to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year given that little progress has been made in recent negotiations, a report

stated today. “We earlier expected the country to join the WTO this year but the current situation may make that unrealistic. Perhaps it will take place next year,” trade minister Truong Dinh Tuyen said in a Saigon Times report. Vietnam is under no formal pressure to join the WTO by the time the global trade body holds its next ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December but Hanoi had up to now made that date its target.

So far Vietnam, has signed WTO agreements with the EU, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba and Singapore. Those that remain to be convinced include the US, Japan, China, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. “Since the ninth round of negotiations ended, some countries have not been satisfied with Vietnam’s WTO commitments,” Tuyen said, without elaborating.