Vietnam-EU deal looks promising for footwear industry

06/08/2015
The European Union and Vietnam have agreed in principal to a free trade agreement, which will remove nearly all tariffs on traded goods.

The EU is the biggest importer of Vietnamese footwear, and volumes are likely to rise substantially when the deal takes effect.

The deal, which took more than two years to negotiate, is expected to conclude in late 2017 or early 2018, with some tariffs eliminated gradually over a 10-year period.

Annual trade between the two is worth about $30bn.