According to Mr. Truong Ðình Tuy?n- the former Minister of Trade- opportunities are real but entering WTO does not mean immediate development. The matter here is how to turn opportunities into the driving forces, which depends so much on us ourselves.

For goods exported, carrying out the WTO commitments will put Vietnamese manufacturers in front of the requirements to adjust and adapt if they want to take full advantages the most successfully.

Entering WTO, entering a big game in the same ground means Vietnam will have to face increasing competitive pressure in 3 levels which are nation, enterprise and product. This will be a considerable challenge if we look from the point of view of the internal weaknesses and the uncertainty in the Vietnamese economy’s ability. Under the pressure of conducting the WTO commitment, Vietnam may even have to accept the reality that some Vietnamese enterprises go bankrupt and Vietnamese products are likely to be crushed by foreign ones right in the home playground.

After the WTO accession, Vietnamese exported products will no longer receive the direct support from the Government. All comparative advantage calculations must base on the WTO commitments and long term policies. In addition, we should count on the demand and shift of production between sections in the world in order to take full advantage of investment flows and technology to enhance the products’ competitiveness.

According to the experts’ estimation, in the near future, Vietnam needs to focus on exporting hi- tech products, which has great added value such as electronic products. For Vietnam, electronic products can be made in large scale and are now attracting many world leading producers to invest. Additionally, we can take full advantages of abundant and cheap workforce to create exporting advantages. Software is also an exporting product which is paid attention to. However, it is obvious that the most important requirements are human resource and product diversity to quickly spell the name firmly and to raise exporting value quickly.

In term of products which require much labor and process task such as textile, footwear, we need to fully exploit the rich and cheap human resource but should not forget to consider the advantages which need to improve such as skill development, and productivity aimed at the orders which are highly ingenious and have great added value. In addition, we should stimulate the supporting activities such as designing, producing materials and sub-materials to raise the added value in each product of Vietnam. At the same time, beside the traditional products, we should develop new potential products which are potential to access to a giant market in the future.

In the meanwhile, to the categories of agricultural products, forest products, and aquatic products which are Vietnam’s existing advantages, structure shifting almost means to increase the proportion of the processed products and to reduce the exports of raw materials. In order to do so, we need a policy to re-project our raising and growing in large scale, high productivity, and biologic technologies application in the production. And Vietnam should invest in processing properly and create the relationship between producing - processing - and exporting in the three categories of agricultural products, forest products and aquatic products.

Besides, exporting services should get greater attention. At the moment, Vietnam services are the losers even at home: its import always exceeds the export. Nevertheless, Vietnam can tap into the exporting field of airline, telecommunication, and particularly tourism and labor export.