HCMC – The European Commission (EC) on July 15 publicized import quotas for Vietnam’s rice and some agricultural products and clarified methods of quota management, in line with commitments toward the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).
Under EVFTA, which is set to come into force on August 1, Vietnamese farm produce, mainly rice, will be entitled to tariff exemptions on imports to the EU but these products will have annual import quotas, VietnamPlus news site reported.
According to the EC’s announcement, the quotas on the import of farm produce to the EU will be applied from August 1, with the egg import quota set at 208.3 tons from August 1 to December 31 and 500 tons per year.
The annual import quota for garlic will be 400 tons, while that for corn, cassava, tuna, sugar and mushrooms will be 5,000 tons, 30,000 tons, 11,500 tons, 20,000 tons and 350 tons, respectively.
The EC has set an annual import quota of 80,000 tons for rice, with 20,000 tons for unhusked rice, 30,000 tons for husked rice and the rest for fragrant rice.
To ensure stable consumption and avoid inventories of rice in the market, the EC recommended importing 10,000 tons of unhusked rice from January 1 to March 31 each year, the other 5,000 between April 1 and June 6 and the remaining 5,000 tons from July 1 to September 30.
The import of 30,000 tons of husked rice and 30,000 tons of fragrant rice is also being carried out in three phases—15,000 tons of each type of rice in the first phase and each of the 7,500 tons for the second and third phases.
