CPTPP Serving Vietnam as Opportunities and Challenges

CPTPP is originated from the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP) (it is also so call P4) signed in 2005 by Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei. Since September 2008, the United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan have jointly negotiated at the aim of setting up the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP negotiation process ended in 2015 under the agreement of the 12 member states; however, Trump administration announced its withdrawal from the agreement in January 2017. After a number of adjustments, including postponing the implementation of the 20 TPP provisions with the expectation that the United States would return to the Agreement, the 11 remaining TPP members unanimously continued to promote this process by establishing Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership -CPTPP). After completely reviewing the content and approved by the member parliaments, estimated by March 2018, CPTPP will officially become a large economic zone in Asia-Pacific with a population of over 460 million, contributing 14% of world GDP and 1/6 of global trade.

The agreement is expected to establish a new common framework for regional free trade arrangement for Asia-Pacific countries, to support trade, to attract foreign investment, and to promote institution reformation in those countries. CPTPP has the basic advantages as the members of the negotiation are the countries that have been strongly committed to the trade liberalization. Given the disclosed commitments, CPTPP is considered as a model treaty for the 21st century because of its overwhelming scale and influence in comparison with other trade agreements regionally and globally.

Given the competitiveness, the economic size and the inadequacies of the current institutional system, it is surprised that Vietnam has strongly participated in CPTPP. Compared with other members, it has the least competitive economy and the loosest legal system. Despite its 20-year-old experience in the process of international economic integration, Vietnam lacks the practices in a highly competitive and demanding integration environment since it is only familiar with first-generation FTAs, where the open commitments and reform pressures are readily accepted in a transitional and distinctive economy.

Meanwhile, CPTPP’s regulations set out in the negotiations are evaluated as far beyond the ability of the current economy of Vietnam. What is the motive of Vietnam to join CPTPP?

Given the economic size of the members and the terms of trade liberalization, joining CPTPP is obviously advantage to empower Vietnamese economy in the Southeast Asia in terms of economic growth, trade as well as FDI attraction. In the economic perspective, Vietnam is a country to achieve the most benefit from the CPTPP.

Firstly, the opportunities to increase the export of goods that are the advantages of Vietnam (i.e. textiles, footwear, electronic products and equipments) are relatively high by combining the tariff reduction and the experiences in these markets.

Secondly, the attraction of foreign investment into Vietnam is greatly promising. The access to large markets such as Japan and Canada together with the clearer commitments to improve the investment environment and protect intellectual property rights will become a significant attraction for international investors. Moreover, Vietnam, under the framework of CPTPP, is able to attract large inflows from the member countries through the membership of regional economic organizations such as AFTA and ACFTA.

Thirdly, the chances of faster economic growth are strongly wide. The expansion of the major export industries such as textiles, footwear, fishery, etc., will help stimulate the income growth from domestic production, thereby support the increase of the overall demand.

Fourthly, Vietnam will have an opportunity to form a more comprehensive economic structure. CPTPP will urge the domestic investors as well as the regional ones to invest in the supporting industries to create local material resources given the extremely high standards on the place of origin.

Fifthly, it is a chance to complete the institutions that govern the market economy. CPTPP sets out a clear legal framework for not accepting concessions to any business. Because of its high and foreseen requirements on policy transparency, compared to many other agreements, CPTPP could become one of the important premises for Vietnam to carry out institutional and market reforms thoroughly and comprehensively.

However, among the countries participating in CPTPP, Vietnam achieves the lowest level of development and faces big challenges.

Firstly, the production industry structure is not consistent with the provisions of CPTPP. The economy is not well-prepared and the supporting industry is weak. With regard to the requirements of origin, the sectors which are the advantages of Vietnam’s export sector are not able to exploit the concessions from the CPTPP because their inputs do not contain domestic factors.

The second challenge is from the stagnation of the enterprise system. The adaptability to the market economy of Vietnamese enterprises is weak. The lack of an effective investment strategy for the supporting production industry and “traditional outsourcing” works have made the overall benefit of the economy declined.

Thirdly, the limitation of state enterprises’ role in the national economy becomes a content of CPTPP. The external pressure is positive only if it meets the community benefits. If the selection of CPTPP is purely commercial-economic aspect, it will not cause the objection against the reformation within the SOE system.

The fourth challenge is from the increasing competition of goods from the members of CPTPP. At present, Vietnamese enterprises are well-protected by the high tariffs. The trend and demand for zero tariff reduction will be applied to CPTPP members in the coming time. In the analysis of the export structure of CPTPP countries, it can be seen that the manufacturing industries of Vietnam facing difficulty are automobile industry and agriculture, especially the husbandry which remains mall and fragmented, and unable to compete against the large, experienced and traditional competitors.

The fifth challenge from the requirements of intellectual property protection in CPTPP is much more critical. The continuing possibility of “appearing to court” by infringing intellectual property law is present in countries previously without adequate preparation of intellectual property law. Furthermore, the requirements for increasing the level of protection of intellectual property rights over inventions, copyrights, and trade marks can lead to the escalation of drug prices and create a health burden to the emerging economy like Vietnam. More than that, the measures to protect intellectual property related to biology also affect agriculture which accounts for more than 60% of the population of Vietnam. The prices of agricultural products such as veterinary drugs, fertilizer, etc. will thereby grow significantly, which increases costs and reduces the efficiency of agricultural production in general.

In regard of the need for economic reform and the promotion of economic growth, the process of further integration into the world economy is not allowed to slow down. The question is what Vietnam needs to do to facilitate the upcoming integration roadmap.

Firstly, administrative reform and severely corruption offence are the most important things. It is shown that the WTO supports free market economy so that it could operate and develop only in a healthy competitive environment. Since the joining in the WTO, Vietnamese economy has not really created a healthy competitive environment. Meanwhile, corruption has created more conditions for interest groups to ramp up and distort even the good national policies. If the administrative procedures remain cumbersome and troublesome, corruption will still restrain the required transparency in corporate management. In accordance, CPTPP is not an opportunity, but a challenge to the whole system.

Secondly, the reformation of the legal environment and policies to ensure a single “standard” prescribed by CPTPP is a difficult for Vietnam. But in the long run, this reform of the institutional environment towards the international “rules” is a necessary condition for growth in the context of globalization. In this perspective, although adjusting the policy system involving the regulation of CPTPP is a difficult and costly process, Vietnam’s commitments can be seen as an external “push” to provide additional momentum for domestic efforts towards a transparent institutional environment and economic growth.

Thirdly, it is needed to organize the perfect communication to all classes of people, especially the business and the production circles in the countryside. The participation in CPTPP without fast updating to the farmers might cause the loss of market, the high pressure of competition, and even the legal disadvantage in disputes and sues.

Fourthly, the reform of SOE and the development of SMEs is the key solution. Given the population and economic growth, the number of enterprises in Vietnam is relatively low. This is a major constraint in economic development, employment, creation of competitive markets and the mobilization of resources from society.

In the context of limited resources and high demands of work, the development of these types of enterprise is appropriate not only to the internal capacity but also the preferences of CPTPP. Hence, it is essential to reform SOEs in a substantial way and enable them to have a transparent business environment.

Bui Thanh Nam
Bui Thanh Nam
Assoc.Prof.Dr.BuiThanh Nam, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi