The comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) officially took effect on December 30, creating a free trade area for 11 signatories including Viet Nam.

On October 23, 2017, the EC officially issued a “yellow-card” warning for Vietnam’s seafood exports to the EU market. The EC also proposed nine recommendations that Vietnam should immediately implement in six months (from October 23, 2017 to April 23, 2018). The “yellow card” is followed by a “green card” if the problem is resolved or a “red card” if it isn’t. A “red card” can lead to a trade ban on fishery products.

The tides wait for no one. Southeast Asia fishers live this truth daily and know that their catches are in decline, particularly for those leading hardscrabble lives casting their nets close to shore. The perils for these fishermen are well-documented and include clashes with other commercial trawlers, resource depletion, water pollution, and limitations in catch traceability, along with dangerous labor conditions.

The threat of a bad report card from the European Union has alarmed the more than 30,000 Vietnamese commercial traditional trawlers considered at risk of being deemed uncooperative in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. With EU officials expected to return to Vietnam next week for a reassessment of Vietnam’s violations, the fishing industry has been fast-tracking measures to correct its marine practices. In the process, Vietnam may become a model for ASEAN countries.

A seminar on boosting Vietnam – France economic ties via the EU – Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took place in Paris on December 20, attracting about 100 participants.

Vietnamese and Japanese experts gathered at a seminar held in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on December 20, discussing measures to develop the food processing industry in Vietnam.

Vietnam is pushing to implement recommendations from the European Commission in advance of a new round of inspections that the country’s leaders hope will lead to the elimination of a warning label it received from the commission last year.

The Government should have policies to support research and processing that would use shrimp by-products as high-value products, experts have said.

ASEAN and China are big markets that are yet fully tapped by Vietnamese exporters, heard a forum on the two markets held in Ho Chi Minh City on December 14.

The business news website Bloomberg has run an article explaining why Vietnam could get the most benefits among Asian nations from the US-China trade conflict.

(seafood.vasep.com.vn) Below is the list of enterprises who are committed to purchasing raw materials sourced from legal fishing vessels with clear traceability and only importing legally caught seafood. These enterprises resolutely do not buy catches sourced from illegal fishing vessels operating without permit, logbook and report in accordance with regulations, or fishing with prohibited fishing gears. They say no to the protected species and catches with smaller size than the minimum size limits.

The southernmost province of Ca Mau has devised various measures, including boosting trade promotion activities, to expand and adjust the structure of its export markets, towards realising its target of earning 1.2 billion USD from exports in 2019.

Vietnam and China have reached consensus on further bolstering agricultural cooperation.

Vietnam has seen a gradual increase in its proportion of industrial and agricultural, forestry, and aquatic products exported to China, and a reduction in its export of raw materials, fuels, and minerals, heard a forum in Ho Chi Minh City on December 5.

The fifth meeting of a joint committee on economic cooperation between the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development took place in Rome on December 4.