Eurasian Economic Union, Vietnam sign free trade agreement

The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Vietnam signed a free trade agreement (FTA) here on Friday, marking the first international document signed by the Eurasian grouping with a third party.

This was the first such deal with foreign countries for the EEU, which groups Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, said Andrei Slepnev, top trade official of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), a permanent regulatory body of the EEU.

The agreement will give the EEU access to a 90-million people market, as well as the opportunity to enter markets of other ASEAN countries and the Asian region as a whole, he said.

The agreement will enter into force 60 days after it is ratified in all EEU countries and in Vietnam, he said, adding that he hoped all the countries would ratify the agreement during the autumn session.

Viktor Khristenko, chairman of the EEC's board, called the agreement "a historic act."

"The agreement covers not only the preferential regimes, but also the issues of managing intellectual property rights and a number of other areas," he said after prime ministers of the five EEU member states struck the FTA agreement with their Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung.

By signing the FTA, trade between the EEU member states and Vietnam is expected to grow to 10 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 from the current 4 billion, Khristenko said.

The EEU will sign free trade zone agreements with other countries, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said after signing the agreement. "Around 40 states have opted to hold talks on concluding this kind of agreements on a free trade zone with EEU," he said, without giving details.

The EEU, which came into effect on Jan. 1, 2015, is designed to ensure free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce within the union. Endite