The government has issued a decree on Việt Nam’s list of preferential import tax rates for the 2016-18 period to cut more than 5,000 tariff lines to zero.

The move comes under the Free Trade Agreement between Việt Nam and the Eurasian Union (EAEU).

According to Decree 137/2016/NĐ-CP, the tariff reduction schedule will be implemented under three stages -- from now until December 31, 2016, from January 1, 2017 until December 31, 2017, and from January 2018 until December 31, 2018.

Specifically, import tax rate of 4,959 tariff lines dropped to zero from October 5, 2016, the date the Việt Nam-EAEU FTA came into effect, until December 31, 2017.

The goods joining the zero import tax included input material for production, such as material and sub-material of textiles, garments, leather, footwear and plastic. They also involved some key export products of Việt Nam, such as shoes, garments, seafood and electronic components and products, as well as tea, coffee, vegetables and rubber, along with milk, some kinds of steel, steel products, chemical products, machinery and equipment.

In 2018, there will be another 144 tariff lines that will be reduced to zero, bringing the total number of tariff lines at zero to 5,103, or 54 per cent of the total tariff lines, at the list of preferential import tax rates.