The Danida funded twinning project between Vietnam TBT Office and Danish Standards hosted a stakeholder seminar the 3rd of September in Hanoi in order to strengthen the ties to the Business Associations and their members. The focus was on the importance of easy access to technical regulations in foreign countries.
The dependence of foreign partners’ knowledge of the technical regulations can have direct and inappropriate economic consequences for the Vietnamese exporters. Thus the Vietnam TBT Office’s role – as a provider of information about technical regulations – is important for exporting companies which aim to operate more independently on export markets.
At present, the ties between the TBT Vietnam Office and the Vietnamese enterprises are still weak. Even though a network of 64 provincial TBT points have been established the visibility of these information providers is still limited.
As a consequence of this, the project management of the twinning project has made great efforts to strengthen the relations to the business associations and use these as a gateway to the exporting companies. These efforts resulted in the signing of cooperation agreements between TBT Vietnam Office and Hanoi Small and Medium size Enterprises Association and Vietnam Coffee and Cacao Association. In the near future two more business associations will sign similar agreements.
The objective of the Danida funded twinning project is to support the TBT Vietnam Office in establishing a network of business associations which can disseminate TBT knowledge to their members and in this way support the enterprises as well as the TBT Vietnam Office.
Next stakeholder seminar will take place in November 2008.
