Strict commodity import standards of markets belonging to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) will create motivation for Vietnamese enterprises to standardize production processes, elevate product quality, and upgrade competitive capacity with other suppliers at this market bloc.

Preparing for the signing of the 18th FTA

Following more than a decade of negotiations with 21 official sessions, Vietnam and 4 countries belonging to the EFTA, encompassing Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, have issued a Joint Statement on concluding negotiations for the bilateral Vietnam - EFTA Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The Joint Statement on concluding negotiations means opening the way for the FTA signing ceremony in the coming time.

Serving as a new-generation FTA, the agreement covers multiple crucial fields such as trade in goods, services, rules of origin, SPS, TBT, investment, intellectual property, trade remedies, government procurement, trade and sustainable development, small and medium enterprises, cooperation and capacity elevation.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Thuy, Vietnamese Trade Counselor to Sweden, concurrently in charge of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Latvia, evaluated: "Concluding negotiations for this FTA carries a meaning stretching beyond an ordinary tariff reduction agreement."

According to Ms. Thuy, that demonstrates that Vietnam continues to be steadfast with the path of deep and wide international economic integration, diversifying markets and partners, and elevating the quality of trade relations with European economies — places possessing high development levels, massive purchasing power, and sustainable development standards belonging to the world's leading group.

However, one should not merely look at the FTA from a tariff preference angle. According to Ms. Thuy, the EFTA market demands very highly regarding imported commodity standards, meaning domestic suppliers must unceasingly elevate exported product quality.

According to data from the EFTA, bilateral trade in 2025 reached 4.8 billion EUR, within which Vietnam ran a surplus of 2.5 billion EUR.

This figure still remains quite modest compared to multiple other FTAs of Vietnam, but the cooperation potential is massive thanks to the complementary nature between the two economies. The EFTA bloc possesses leading strengths in technology, innovation, finance, clean energy, and sustainable development, while Vietnam serves as a large manufacturing, trade, and investment hub of ASEAN. EFTA primarily exports electrical machinery, seafood, pharmaceuticals, and mechanical machinery to Vietnam. In the reverse direction, EFTA member countries import electrical machinery, footwear, garments, and mechanical machinery from Vietnam.

Exchanging with the Financial - Investment Newspaper, Mr. Chu Huu Nghi, Deputy General Director of Hung Yen Garment Joint Stock Corporation - JSC, stated that the enterprise has not yet possessed trade transactions with the EFTA region. However, when the market "door" opens thanks to the bilateral FTA, the enterprise will not miss trade promotion opportunities to possess additional export orders.

"With experience from multiple years exporting garments and textiles to fastidious markets carrying high standards such as the US, EU, South Korea..., the enterprise possesses sufficient confidence to conquer customers in the EFTA market," Mr. Nghi said.

Against a backdrop where the world economy bears impacts from geopolitical tensions, high logistics costs, rising trade protectionism, and day by day tighter green standards, a comprehensive FTA with the EFTA will help Vietnam possess an additional stable and transparent market access channel, thereby reducing dependence on a number of traditional markets.

More importantly, according to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan, when this FTA is signed and enters into execution, it will serve as a lever attracting high-quality investment capital flows from EFTA countries into fields Vietnam is prioritizing, such as high technology, processing industries, clean energy, green transition, innovation, and human resource development.

This also serves as an opportunity for Vietnamese enterprises to participate deeper into global supply chains, access modern technology, and elevate governance capacity.

Attraction from premium purchasing power

In reality, new-generation FTAs brought into execution within around the past 4-7 years, such as the UKVFTA, CPTPP, EVFTA, RCEP... have been and are creating "launching pads" for enterprises to expand markets, increase exports, and utilize tariff preferences.

If the EVFTA opens the door into the European Union market with a scale of over 450 million people and a GDP of around 21,400 billion USD; the CPTPP with 600 million people and a GDP of around 15,800-17,000 billion USD, then the FTA with the EFTA conversely carries a different meaning. This serves as a "small playground" but converges standards belonging to the world's strictest group.

The EFTA bloc with a population of around 15 million people might seem like not too large a market. However, the attractiveness of this economic bloc lies in its premium purchasing power. With a 2025 per capita GDP reaching over 105,000 USD, multiple times higher than the EU average, the EFTA serves as a highly potential import market, particularly against commodities where Vietnam possesses strengths, such as agricultural products, seafood, garments and textiles, leather and footwear, wooden products, and electronics.

The point noting attention is that EFTA nations set out very high standards regarding quality, food safety, environmental protection, and social responsibility. Therefore, to penetrate this market, enterprises must pass extremely rigorous "tests."

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) evaluated that concluding negotiations for the FTA with the EFTA serves as a positive signal against a backdrop of volatile global trade, rising protectionist trends, and large markets day by day tightening standards against seafood.

According to VASEP, the Vietnam - EFTA FTA should not be perceived as an immediate "boost" regarding output volume, but rather as an opportunity to open an additional market group possessing high purchasing power and high standards, appropriate for Vietnam's orientation of elevating exported product values.

Currently, Vietnamese seafood exports to the EFTA bloc primarily concentrate in Switzerland and Norway. In 2025, export turnover to these two markets reached around 52.6 million USD, occupying a small proportion within Vietnam's total seafood export turnover, but demonstrating growth room in the market segment possessing high purchasing power.

In the first 5 months of 2026, seafood exports to Switzerland reached 13.437 million USD, down 15% compared to the same period; while exports to Norway reached 7.027 million USD, up 36.7%.

"Looking at the overall picture, the Vietnam - EFTA FTA serves as an integration step carrying meaning for the seafood sector, but it does not constitute an automatic advantage. Opportunities will belong to enterprises that prepare early regarding quality, certifications, traceability, rules of origin, packaging, labeling, and the capacity to work with retail systems, importers, and foodservice in Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland," a VASEP representative affirmed.

In the EFTA market, Vietnamese seafood does not merely compete with EU countries and Norway, but must also confront competitors such as the UK, Russia, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and China.

Up to this point, among Asian countries exporting into the EFTA bloc, China, Thailand, and Malaysia serve as the largest competitors of Vietnam.

Merely in the first half of 2025, the EFTA sequentially signed FTAs with two ASEAN member nations, Thailand and Malaysia.

Thus, up to now, the EFTA has signed a total of 5 FTAs with ASEAN countries, encompassing Singapore (June 2002), the Philippines (April 2016), Indonesia (December 2018), Thailand (January 2025), and Malaysia (June 2025).

To utilize the FTA with the EFTA to the maximum, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang Thuy argued that Vietnamese enterprises need to view this agreement as an opportunity to continue upgrading the role of exporters, satisfying new standards from fastidious buyers.

Above all, the EFTA market demands high standards, but precisely because of that, it conversely matches Vietnam's new development orientation, which is increasing added value, elevating growth quality, participating deeper into sustainable supply chains, and constructing national brands regarding responsible goods. Along with that, tariff preferences merely truly possess value when enterprises properly satisfy rules of origin, certification dossiers, food safety requirements, and technical standards of the market.

"Enterprises should start preparing right from now, because the timeframe from concluding negotiations to signing, ratifying, and executing serves as a crucial phase to review internal capacity. Preparing early will yield advantages when the agreement officially enters into force," the representative of the Vietnamese Trade Office Agency in this region emphasized.

Source: Bao Tai chinh - Dau tu