Vietnamese firms ignorant about EU FTA Up to 69% of Vietnamese exporters to the European market said that they only heard about the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and were unaware of its content. The information was mentioned in a survey about impacts of EVFTA on Vietnam’s policy and mechanism reforms released by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) recently.   Up to 69% of Vietnamese exporters to the European market said that they only heard about the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA)  According to the survey which covers 120 companies which have signed export contracts with EU partners, 26% said that they only knew a little about EVFTA while only 5% admitted that they have thorough knowledge of the agreement which is scheduled to take effect early 2018. Due to the ignorance about the agreement, up to 63% of the interviewed exporters have not made any preparations for the agreement which is scheduled to take effect in early 2018. The in-principle agreement reached on August 4 2015 includes the elimination of over 99% of all tariffs. Vietnam will liberalise tariffs over a ten-year period and the EU will do likewise over a seven-year period. Experts, however, warned that the EVFTA is a new deal with more commitments to cut tariffs, create commercial advantages, and improve the investment and business environments, competition, and sustainable development. It will also create challenges because the EU is one of the most competitive markets in the world. Vietnamese companies are advised to study more information about European markets, pay more attention to raising their product quality as well as packaging. Many Vietnamese companies said that a taskforce should be set up to provide information about EVFTA for the business community. By Nguyen Tuyen,  dtinews.vn