A trade deal with the European Union expected to be ratified this year will accelerate growth of Vietnam's export-reliant economy without help from the U.S. market, analysts say.
The European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement signed in 2015 should speed annual economic growth by half a percent to more than seven percent by 2019, according to data from the business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates.
Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade said Tuesday the two sides had finished a legal review of the deal, the Vietnamese Communist Party news website Nhan Dan Online reported. The deal must pass the European Parliament as well as Vietnamese lawmakers.
Vietnam counts the European Union, with a market of about 500 million people, as its No. 3 trading partner after China and the United States. Their trade totaled about $50.4 billion last year.
Vietnam relies on exports of garments, auto parts and consumer electronics to stoke a GDP that already outgrows most of the world. It had hoped the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal would open tariff-free access to the United States until U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from it last year.
The EU-Vietnam deal will eliminate import tariffs on 99 percent of all goods within a decade and open Vietnam to European services such as healthcare, packaging and conference hosting.