Vietnamese commercial counsellors in EU countries attended a conference on the European Union’s trade policies and mechanisms held in Brussels, Belgium, on February 18.

The conference, funded by the EU, provided them an opportunity to study the union’s policies on foreign trade and multilateral trade liberalisation; its Generalised System of Tariff Preferences; and its regulations on services, intellectual property rights, anti-dumping, climate change and energy.

The officials from 14 Vietnamese embassies in EU member countries and relevant departments of the Vietnamese Industry and Trade and Foreign Ministries also studied the role of the Lisbon Treaty in institutionalising EU activities, and the union’s measures to cope with the current global financial crisis.

Addressing the conference, James Moran, Head of the European Commission’s Department for Asia, said the EU considered Vietnam as an important partner with which it wanted to expand trade relations for mutual benefit.

Vietnam and the EU established diplomatic ties in 1990, and since then their two-way trade has rapidly increased.

Vietnam’s export turnover to the EU reached US$12.4 billion last year with major earners being leather footwear, textile and garment, coffee, wooden products and aquatic produce. It imports from EU countries machines, medicines and fertilisers.