KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31 — Despite Vietnam having benefitted from a free trade pact agreement with the US, an economist from the socialist republic has claimed that signatories to the new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement could experience unfair treatment from big competitors threatened by growing imports in wealthier economies like the US.
Citing experience from the bilateral trade pact Vietnam has with Washington, Dr Doanh Le Dang said the agreement did help boost Vietnamese shrimp and catfish exports into the US market, but only to face fierce resistance from American competitors who then exploited legal loopholes provided under the trade pact to stymie exports from its Vietnamese counterparts.
“Politically and ideologically, I would say there is no US bullying,” Le Dang, a senior fellow with the Association of Vietnam Economists, told a forum on the TPP here.
“But unfair trade, yes,” he added.
The forum, organised by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), showcased panelists from Mexico, Vietnam and Indonesia. All three countries are signatories to the TPPA while the first two have existing bilateral trade pacts with the US.
Vietnamese exports to the US rose from US$1.5 billion (RM6.395 billion) in 2001 to over US$30 billion in 2013, making the US, making the North Americans Vietnam’s biggest trading partner after China.
But Le Dang said not all is well with the trade pact as the moment Vietnamese exports of shrimps to the US surpassed 8 per cent, American competitors, armed with skilled but expensive lawyers, began lobbying Washington to cut down Vietnamese imports.
“Most of it (resistance) are through anti-dumping laws,” the economist pointed out.
Anti-Dumping law is a form of protectionist tariff that a domestic government imposes on foreign imports that it believes are priced below fair market value.
But other than that Le Dang claimed the TPP with the US helped Vietnam gain access to a rich market, created more jobs and helped cut dependency on the Chinese economy.
It was announced on October 5 that the 12 countries involved in the TPP had reached an agreement on the trade deal. Those representing the various nations are now in the process of seeking approval from their various governments to ratify the deal.
According to international reports, the TPP involving the US, Malaysia and other Pacific countries would phase out thousands of import tariffs as well as other barriers to international trade, establish uniform rules on corporations’ intellectual property, and open up the Internet.
The agreement comes amid strong opposition from rights groups and segments of the business community who said the pact would kill off small businesses, drive wages down and shoot prices of medicines up.
But proponents of the free trade pact have dismissed the claims as baseless.
Another panelist at the Ideas forum, Mexican ambassador to Malaysia Carlos Isauro Felix Corona citing Mexico's experience in signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) said his country has managed to keep inflation low.
Corona also said Mexico gained more from the trade agreement than losing as claimed by Nafta's critics, noting that the trade pact had helped the Central American country to industrialise some of its economy and cut dependency on oil.
Mexico is among the world's biggest oil producer.
But the Mexican ambassador also admitted that the trade pact had killed off some of its industries like textile and agriculture, which resulted in the rising number of displaced workers.
“You win some you lose some. But even in life there are winners and losers,” Corona told the forum in warning signatories of the TPP against looking at the trans-atlantic deal as a "magic wand" to solve their unique domestic economic problems.
