Ha Noi, (VNA) - The year 2004 marked Viet Nam's great successes in expanding external affairs and stepping up its integration into the world economy. As a result, the country's prestige and position in the international arena has been raised.

Progress has been seen in implementing the Viet Nam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement, with two-way trade increasing from 4.5 billion USD in 2003 to over 6 billion USD this year, of which Viet Nam exported goods worth nearly 5 billion USD.

The country's relationship with China has been strengthened. The visit to China by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in May 2004 and the visit to Viet Nam by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in October helped boost an initiative on building an economic belt linking the Gulf of Tonkin, the Ha Noi-Hai Phong-Lao Cai-Kunming economic corridor and the Ha Noi-Hai Phong-Lang Son-Nanning economic corridor. Viet Nam recognised China's economy as a market economy and vice versa. Two-way trade is estimated at over 5 billion USD in 2004.

In 2004, Japan stood out as Viet Nam's biggest investor. The bilateral relationship has been developed in the direction of a sustainable, stable and long-term one.

Viet Nam was successful in accelerating economic and commercial ties with the European Union. The two sides arrived at a bilateral agreement on Viet Nam's admission to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The agreement was of great significance for Viet Nam as it helped the country make another stride towards becoming a member of the world's biggest trade body. Viet Nam and the EU also signed an agreement to abolish quotas on Viet Nam's exports of textiles and garments to the latter's market.

A similar agreement was also reached with Canada in 2004. Both accords, which will come into effect as of January 2005, will create great opportunities for Viet Nam's textiles and garment industry.

At the 2004 consultative group meeting for Viet Nam, donors committed to grant a record of 3.4 billion USD in official development assistance (ODA) to Viet Nam in 2005, a year-on-year increase of 600 million USD.

On the regional integration path, Viet Nam actively joined the integration mechanism of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In 2004, Viet Nam included 760 commodity items in its list under the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT), bringing the total tax benefits for CEPT/AFTA to 6,260.

Viet Nam also took part in the 12th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Chile, calling upon all APEC member countries to support Viet Nam's bid to secure WTO membership. At the Chile summit, APEC members chose Ha Noi as the venue for the 14th APEC summit, scheduled for November 2006.

On the process of joining the WTO, Viet Nam successfully organised the eighth round of negotiations in 2004 and the ninth round, scheduled for this December, will discuss a draft report on multilateral commitments. This year, Viet Nam completed its bilateral negotiations with six out of 27 negotiating partners, namely the EU, Cuba, Chile, Argentina and Singapore and facilitated negotiations with major partners, including the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China. Viet Nam is determined to join the WTO in 2005.

After 20 years of exercising the renewal policy, Viet Nam has made great strides on the international economic integration path. The process has helped with the country's economic restructuring towards modernisation and industrialisation, and an expansion of exports. The expansion of exports has created employment opportunities and resolved disputes with foreign partners in a constructive and fair manner, thus minimizing unilateral actions and impositions by large trade partners. The course of integration also helped raise the management capacity of State officials and business people, enabling them to catch up with the world's management level.