Ha Noi, 5 July 2005

H.E. Mr. Ong Keng Yong, Secretary General of ASEAN Ladies and Gentlemen, Firstly, please allow me to express my pleasure to be here to speak to ASEAN Forum on Trade in Services “Towards a free flow of Services in ASEAN”. On behalf of the Government of Vietnam, I warmly welcome all participants from ASEAN countries, ASEAN Secretariat and international organizations. I would like to express my sincere thanks to ASEAN Secretariat for close cooperation with relevant agencies of Vietnam to organize this Forum in Hanoi in conjunction with the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Vietnam’s joining the ASEAN. I also highly appreciate the financial support of the Government of Japan to assist ASEAN to organize this important event.

H.E. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen, We are very happy to observe that over the past years ASEAN have had a great number of achievements in developing a free regional market. Along with trade in goods, trade in services has played a more important role in the regional economy. Services liberalization has positive impacts on enhancing competitiveness and attractiveness of ASEAN market and bringing about benefits to member countries. Therefore, the decision of the leaders of ASEAN countries to approve a road map for a free services market by 2020 and for priority service sectors by 2010 is made to achieve this goal. Up to now ASEAN countries have completed 3 rounds of negotiation and signed 4 commitment packages under ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and now are in the 4th round of negotiation as part of our effort. However, for a number of member countries the negotiation on service is a new task so that there still exist difficulties and obstacles that require us to exert more effort to successfully establish a regional free service market.

H.E. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen, Over the past decade, by implementing reform policy Vietnam has obtained important achievements in socio-economic development. We understand that it is partly attributed to our closer integration with the regional as well as the global economy. Vietnam always regards cooperation activities with ASEAN member countries our high priority task. We work closely with ASEAN countries to develop a common market of the region. We always treat service as a very important sector which has a decisive role in the establishment of ASEAN free market. Therefore Vietnam has been proactive and cooperative in negotiation with member countries in mapping out ways and means to accelerate the proccess.

H.E. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen, That the Forum is organized at this time has a great significance for liberalization progress of the regional service market. In the Forum experiences in opening up ASEAN service market, lessons learnt of other regions and communities will be presented and discussed by regional and international experts. Through it I firmly believe that appropriate solutions and counter measures to over come obstacles in the process of trade and service liberalization will be proposed and examined. With the participation of a large number of representatives from business sector, I believe that the Forum is a good opportunity for Government officials to know and understand actual status of enterprises in liberalization process. On the other hand, business communities can have a chance to catch up with development trend of the regional market in order to set up appropriate strategies. Therefore, I am confident that the Forum will be a critical milestone in the process of developing a free regional services market.

H.E. Secretary General, Ladies and Gentlemen, Taking this opportunity I would like to propose all participants from Government agencies and business communities to frankly exchange views and opinions and feel free to launch new ideas and proposals in order to further promote service liberalization in ASEAN. I affirm you that Vietnam is ready to actively work with ASEAN member countries through out the process. I wish the Forum a lot of success and all participants happiness in the life. Thank you for your attention.