WTO chief sees Vietnam accession within two years

WTO chief sees Vietnam accession within two years

World Trade Organization director general Mike Moore said in Hanoi Friday that he hoped communist Vietnam could become a member of the global body by late 2003.

This would be in time to take part in the negotiations on the new world trade round launched earlier this month.

"I would be enormously disappointed ... if we can't see Vietnam at the ministerial conference in two years' time at the table in those negotiations," Moore told a news conference at the end of a 24-hour visit.

Asked by AFP afterwards if he had meant he hoped to see Vietnam as a full member at those talks, he said: "Yes."

Moore said he had been impressed by the level of commitment to WTO accession he had found in his talks with Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and other senior officials.

Ahead of his talks with the WTO chief Thursday evening, Trade Minister Vu Khoan had said he would like Vietnam to join "tomorrow" if possible.

The final ratification of a landmark trade agreement with the United States, which will lead to the lifting of punitive U.S. tariffs, had given the communist authorities the confidence to press ahead, Moore said.

"There was a determination and a vision and a confidence because of the American agreement as a stepping stone.

"When they saw tariffs falling from 40 or 50 percent down to five or three percent, they saw the economic advantages to them."

The WTO chief warned that nobody should underestimate the difficulties of accession, which would involve negotiations with all the body's different members, some 143 countries by the end of this year.

He said he would be working closely with the World Bank and United Nations Development Program to see what technical assistance could be provided in the arduous process that lay ahead. -- AFP