Trade Win No. 1

The box that grew trade

Today, roughly 80 percent of global goods trade moves by ship, but until Malcolm McLean’s shipping container arrived, trade logistics were fragmented and costly. McLean’s invention was a breakthrough, but its true potential took time and concerted effort to realize. By the 1960s, the standardized container allowed goods to move seamlessly between sea, rail, and road without repacking. Trade saw a structural shift: port times shrank, losses fell, and shipping costs dropped. Schedules became predictable, and businesses of all sizes could scale production across borders. SMEs gained access to distant markets. The revolution was not automatic. Engineering solved the mechanics; standardization made the system universal. Global collaboration, spanning public and private actors, aligned customs procedures, port operations, safety regimes, and technical specifications so one box could be handled anywhere. The containerization of global trade is a proven win in international trade that fuels growth and development across every region. 

Before containers, shipping was labor-intensive and slow. Cargo arrived by road, rail, or barge, was unpacked at the dock, stored if needed, then loaded piece by piece into a ship—only to be handled again at the next port. One study shows that productivity of dock labor in Europe jumped by 17.6 times between pre-container in 1965 and post-container in 1970. Today, a refrigerated box sealed in Ecuador can be exported to Rotterdam, then quickly re-exported to Germany without repacking—illustrating how the container increased market access for firms of any size across the globe.

Containerization was implemented through multiple rulebooks.  ISO Technical Committee 104 set the global technical interface, including key standards such as ISO 668 (dimensions and ratings), and ISO 1496 (construction and testing), ISO 1161 (corner fittings), and ISO 6346 (identification). These standards ensure containers and equipment work across ports, cranes, wagons, and chassis globally. The International Convention for Safe Containers embedded safety standards in daily operations, while the International Maritime Organization’s SOLAS, IMDG, ISPS, and CTU codes made packing, stowage, and handling uniform. Customs and trade facilitation scaled with the Harmonized System, the Revised Kyoto Convention, Single Window, and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Regulatory reforms (e.g., U.S. Shipping Act changes) enabled flexible, competitive container shipping practices. Lastly, infrastructure and information systems such as cellular ships, inland rail/barge corridors, and port community systems enabled these rules to scale globally. 

Today, over 90 percent of non-bulk goods travel in containers, enabling global production networks and efficient manufacturing. Containerization also integrated developing countries into value chains by making trade more reliable and cost-effective. By drastically reducing transport costs and handling times, standardized containers made it economically viable to fragment production across borders. This enabled a new era: developing countries could plug into global value chains with goods, raw or finished, and reach distant markets more reliably and at lower cost, while attracting multinationals seeking cost-effective production locations. 

The policy lesson from containerization is straightforward: standardization delivers. When countries work together, trade scales up and the world benefits.

Trade Win No. 2

Trade drives sustainable energy

Global energy demand is expected to increase at least to 2050 as countries throughout the world face a common challenge—how to meet future energy needs while transitioning to a clean energy economy. International trade has helped to propel renewable energy production, cooperation on technology, and regulatory standardization. Continued momentum in international trade is essential for continued investment and global deployment of sustainable energy.  

High income countries have had unprecedented investment in clean tech manufacturing over the past five years, namely incentivized by government policies. In the United States, policies related to the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helped incentivize sustainable energy transitions. The European Union, Japan, South Korea and many other countries have provided similar incentives for their sustainable transitions. According to the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, 2024 global investment in renewable energy, EVs, and power grid investment exceeded $2 trillion.  

International trade brings clean technology manufacturing and renewable energy production and deployment to scale in at least three ways. First, trade enables renewable energy investors and producers to access larger markets, which can lead to economies of scale in renewable energy production. Second, trade supports the integration of variable renewable energy sources, such as hydrogen, wind and solar. Cross-border interconnections can facilitate the pooling of resources, which further complement renewable output and provide necessary ancillary services.  

Third, international trade encourages the development of regional power markets, which can optimize energy systems and enable greater use of energy sources with lower emissions. Regional integration across the South Asia electricity market and across the Pan-Arab electricity market were both facilitated by international trade and regional cooperation. This regional collaboration can have significant environmental co-benefits and assist in adaptation to climate change through supply diversification.  

Policymakers face the need to decarbonize while preserving industrial competitiveness. They must address the need to adopt often high-cost clean energy technologies while also continuing efforts to develop their economies. Many developing and less-developed economies hold significant natural mineral resources essential to the clean transition and face increased energy demand in their own regions. The price competitiveness driven by international trade and investment can help make these transitions economically viable.  

The challenges remain in meeting the speed and costs of energy transition as countries face severe and intensifying weather and climate vulnerabilities. WTO policies and regulatory-related efforts, such as the Aid for Trade Initiative and Trade Policy Tools for Climate Action have worked well and should continue to support development of the global energy sector in manufacturing and services. As individual country policies and incentives remain tentative as to their longevity and breadth, WTO-led trade policies that align international standards and regulations will offer greater certainty and facilitate the clean energy transition for both governments and individual investors in these sectors.  

Trade plays a pivotal role in facilitating the production and deployment of renewable energy by enhancing market access, reducing costs, integrating variable energy sources, and fostering regional cooperation. In sum, trade is a key contributor to a more sustainable energy future.

Trade Win No. 3

Going paperless has reshaped trade for the better

Digitalisation and going paperless is reshaping trade by speeding up transactions, expanding what can be traded and by whom, and allowing more businesses, especially SMEs, to access global customers and suppliers. Realising these benefits has taken more than just technology; it has required coherent and forward-looking policies. 

Digital tools reduce trade costs and facilitate trade at various stages of the supply chain—reducing trade costs by almost 5 percent on average worldwide since the conclusion of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Regions such as Southeast Asia and Central America demonstrate that automation - through tools like trade single windows in Singapore or Costa Rica - has been a key driver of these gains. When effectively implemented, more automated border processes and streamlined trade-related documentation can deliver 18 percent increases in global goods exports. Going paperless enables greater transparency and traceability along the supply chain and improves firms’ ability to comply with regulations and standards. 

Digital tools are shaped by both domestic and international regulations. For instance, the digital exchange of trade-related documents and the streamlining of processes underlying that exchange rest on the cross-border exchange of data. Lower barriers to these exchanges together with improved domestic frameworks for e-transactions are associated with a 37 percent increase in exports.  

Digitalisation is not only about how we trade, but also what we trade. While sectors such as data processing, analytics and other digitally delivered services have clearly benefitted from lower trade costs via digital connectivity, the impact is far more widespread. These gains extend beyond ‘digital’ sectors to manufacturing, agriculture and food products. Ambitious reductions to barriers affecting digital trade could further boost exports significantly across all these sectors—by 53 percent on average. 

The digital shift also has broadened who participates in trade. The wider use of digital platforms and websites to sell goods across borders has reduced information constraints, contributing to a significant increase in the number of parcels crossing borders. As a result, individuals and smaller firms are more engaged in trade than ever before, a trend that has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring parcels reach their destination requires policy action in e-payments, consumer protection, administrative processes, logistics, and transport services. 

Where countries have implemented paperless border procedures and firms have adopted digital platforms, trade has become faster, cheaper, and more accessible—bringing SMEs and women-owned businesses into regional and global commerce.  

Online forms, permits, and payments help goods clear borders and with fewer mistakes. Businesses save time and money because they don’t have to visit multiple offices or repeat the same paperwork. Consumers have more choice and quicker deliveries. Sellers can reach customers in far away places. In sum, going paperless makes trade faster, cheaper, and easier for everyone. 

Trade Win No. 4

Global trade makes food safe and affordable

Today’s consumers have access to truly global diets; they can choose from a wide variety of safe, nutritious foods at affordable prices. Since 2000, global agriculture exports have more than tripled, from $409 billion to $1.49 trillion in 2020. The number of countries providing these exports is also expanding; in 2000, around 90 countries exported more than $10m in food and agricultural products, but nearly 130 countries export at that level today.   

This bounty is made possible by international food safety, animal and plant health standards and the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement. Together, they facilitate trade in food and agriculture while protecting public health, agricultural productivity, farmer livelihoods, and biodiversity.   

Without the adoption and use of international standards, farmers and food processors would be left on their own to navigate multiple, complex and costly risk mitigation protocols, and accessing new markets would be prohibitive for many. Importing countries often lack capacity to conduct separate assessments of products and risk mitigation methods. Utilizing international standards allows importers to grant market access with the confidence that internationally approved standards and mitigation methods effectively protect consumers, livestock and plant populations.  

Since 2000, The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) and the Codex Alimentarius (Codex) have adopted more than 1,100 standards, protocols and guidelines to ensure food and feed safety, reduce the spread of animal disease, and recognize equivalence between mitigation systems. While the standards themselves are important, these organizations also work collaboratively with national regulators, NGOs and the private sector to ensure governments and industries can implement new standards and gain access to new markets.  This includes projects like the Global Framework for the Progressive Control of African Swine Fever (ASF), which brought together WOAH, governments and farmers in Vietnam, Nigeria and China to decrease the incidence of ASF on farms.   

Our food and agriculture safety framework, and specifically the WTO SPS Agreement, is effective in large part because of its focus on outcomes, rather than mandating specific practices, allowing exporters to use recognized mitigations appropriate for their circumstances, as long as the standards are met. This outcomes-based approach and associated capacity building for the public and private sector provide an important blueprint for the development of trade rules related to climate and ecosystem services, where practices will depend on specific industries and geographies, and international agreement will be needed on how to measure and recognize results.  

Changing weather patterns, migration and international trade exacerbate the number and pace of threats to human, animal and plant health. Institutions like Codex, WOAH, IPPC and the WTO need to work to develop and adopt standards more quickly. The current timeline for developing new standards and guidelines averages 2-4 years, often lagging behind the broad commercialization of new products. Creative and nimble collaboration with the private sector, academia and civil society will help these institutions remain relevant and trusted to protect human, animal and plant health.

Trade Win No. 5

WTO committees keep agricultural trade moving

The role of international trade in improving food security is well-established. Trade allows countries with abundant arable land to export more efficiently produced food to countries that lack this advantage. It can also reduce price volatility and increase the diversity and quality of food available in a country. WTO data show that trade in agricultural products grew from $300 billion in 2000 to nearly $1.5 trillion in 2022. These gains resulted from stable WTO rules, lower tariffs, and regional trade agreements negotiated outside the WTO that led to even further reductions in barriers to agricultural trade. 

Agriculture is a famously sensitive sector in international trade, and numerous agricultural trade barriers remain unaddressed. One reason is that non-tariff measures (NTMs) disproportionately affect agriculture. Studies show that even as overall tariff rates on agricultural goods have declined, NTMs have grown. These are much more difficult to negotiate than tariff reductions. NTMs include sanitary and phytosanitary regulations (SPS) dealing with plant and animal health and food safety as well as technical barriers to trade (TBT), such as food standards and labeling requirements. The WTO allows members to set their own SPS and TBT rules, but only as long as they are based on science and applied in good faith. They should serve to protect plant and animal health and ensure food safety and quality, not as a backdoor to protectionism. Members are obligated to notify the WTO of changes in domestic laws related to trade, like SPS and TBT rules. 

Rather than weighing down the WTO’s dispute settlement system, members can raise questions about each other’s NTMs through the Specific Trade Concerns (STC) route in the SPS and TBT Committees and keep trade flowing. For example, in 2011, the U.S. discovered residue of tricyclazole (a fungicide) on Indian imports of basmati rice and refused to accept them because the Environmental Protection Agency had not established a tolerance level for this chemical in rice. India objected to the U.S. action in an SPS Committee meeting, kicking off the STC process. By 2014, the U.S. notified the WTO of a new regulation establishing tolerances for tricyclazole residue in imported rice and the STC was resolved.  

Other examples abound: from 1995 through November of 2024, the WTO recorded 35,867 SPS notifications and 56,314 TBT notifications (for both agricultural and industrial goods). Of these, 1,444 led to STCs, and out of these, only 111 led to requests for consultations in the Dispute Settlement Body. A WTO analysis found that STCs provide new and higher quality information about trade measures than notifications alone and can bring about the resolution of trade concerns without formal disputes.  

In sum, the WTO committees on standards and technical barriers to trade is often in the weeds but has paid off for tackling nontariff barriers in agricultural trade.

Trade Win No. 6

IPRs help rather than hinder pharmaceutical access

Development and distribution of vaccines during the COVID-19 global pandemic four years ago demonstrated what many studies have shown—patents and other intellectual property rights (IPRs) make it easier for companies to share the technologies behind much needed pharmaceuticals. This in turn helps provide access to medicines that might otherwise be out of reach for many around the world. 

Prior to the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in 1994 , countries such as India and China expressly prohibited patents on pharmaceutical products. The TRIPS Agreement requires all signatory countries to provide minimum intellectual property protection for all technologies, including pharmaceutical products, without discrimination. Despite criticisms that they increase drug prices, these provisions actually foster pharmaceutical investment, innovation, and, importantly, widespread dissemination of medicines in several ways.  

First, the pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on IPRs to protect their investments in research and development. Companies typically invest billions of dollars and decades of effort in not only inventing new drugs but also in the testing necessary to obtain regulatory approval for those drugs. Patents are of particular value, especially now that regulatory laws in the U.S. and many other countries allow generic manufacturers to enter the market by relying on the originators’ clinical trials data. Although patents are only twenty years in duration, early studies suggest that without patents, the pharmaceutical industry would introduce approximately 60 percent fewer new drugs per year. Thus, without the incentives to develop them in the first place, no one ever would receive the benefit of new drugs. 

For example, a study on biomedical innovation in Brazil found that allowing patents on pharmaceutical products incentivized the testing and commercialization of biodiversity-based pharmaceuticals. Patents also facilitated public-private partnerships between university inventors and the biomedical industry.  

Second, pharmaceutical companies introduce new drug products earlier in countries with strong intellectual property rights. A study of 647 new drug products first marketed between 1983 and 2002 showed that, controlling for market size and GDP, countries with pharmaceutical patent protections experienced a 55 percent earlier product introduction. Launching a new drug entails significant costs in obtaining regulatory approval in each country and educating health care professionals on administering the new drug safely and effectively.  

Third, a recent study of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution shows that reliable IPRs promoted broad collaborative efforts to ramp up supply and increase access. Licensing patents and vital trade secrets to partners in India and Brazil helped expand manufacturing capacity. Development of some vaccines such as Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine also resulted from such collaborative efforts. Enforceable IPRs allowed companies to share pivotal technologies, and sell vaccines at cost to less wealthy nations without fear of losing valuable business assets.  

Attempts to waive or compulsorily license pharmaceutical IPRs would have derailed COVID-19 vaccine deployment. A robust IPR regime facilitates both development and international distribution of new drugs— undoubtedly a proven win in international trade and health.

Trade Win No. 7

Trade agreements have helped prohibit forced labor

Coordinated forced labor bans have reaped palpable rewards for workers in the supply chain, as illustrated ​​by​​ the well-known Malaysian Rubber Gloves case. Efforts there led to new recruitment protections and housing for migrant workers, as well as a multi-million dollar fund for victims. ​The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)​ shows how trade agreements​ ​can ​​provide a platform for government officials to coordinate such forced labor efforts​. ​It also shows how ​​​such commitments​​​​​ can ​​be ​​extended to​​​​ other countries. After concluding the USMCA, Canada negotiated ​​the 2023 Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement​, which​ copies the USMCA’s forced labor provisions, requiring Ukraine to prevent the import of goods produced entirely or partly by forced or compulsory labor. ​​​​​ 

Despite global efforts, approximately 27.6 million children, women, and men across countries and economic sectors work in conditions of forced labor. National governments have struggled to establish effective methods for identifying goods produced under forced labor conditions before those goods ​enter​ their borders. Recent efforts to tackle forced labor through ​commitments and ​​coordination ​under trade agreements show significant promise in promoting forced labor ​prohibitions ​across​ ​borders.  

In the United States, efforts to identify and prohibit the importation of goods made by forced labor began in earnest in 2015, when Congress amended Section 307 of the Tariff Act to remove a “consumptive demand” requirement. That requirement had limited enforcement to goods ​i​n which​​ domestic production ​could​ not​ meet American consumer demand. Since then, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has increasingly ​pursued ​​Section 307 ​enforcement ​to detain shipments that contain goods or inputs made with forced labor before they ​​can​​​ enter the United States. 

Generally, CBP’s administrative procedures are praised for incorporating input from other U.S. federal agencies and for streamlining the collection and processing of evidence and reports of forced labor. Its success follows the lessons it has learned ​through​ ​fits and ​starts, when CBP grappled with unfamiliar evidentiary burdens and administrative processes.  

Despite CBP’s enforcement actions, until recently, goods made in whole or in part by forced labor were sometimes diverted into neighboring Mexico and Canada and then sent through intermediaries into the United States. In 2020, the USMCA committed the ​Parties​ to eliminating all forms of forced or compulsory labor, including through import bans. The​y​ agreed to “establish cooperation for the identification and movement of goods produced by forced labor,” a process that helped them ​​synthesize​​ ​inter-governmental ​forced labor administration. ​     ​ 

Shortly after ​​concluding​​ the USMCA, Canada amended its Customs Tariff Act to prohibit the importation of goods made by forced labor and is currently debating additional amendments to strengthen enforcement and broaden the ban’s scope. In 2023, Mexico similarly published an administrative regulation prohibiting the importation of goods produced ​using​ forced labor. Both countries are continuing to adapt customs procedures ​​adopted​​ in the United States to align with their national circumstances. 

Coordinating efforts across countries to ban forced labor, including sharing lessons learned, can ensure that workers are not forced into ​facilitating ​trade against their will.

Trade Win No. 8

China’s trade reforms lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty

China’s remarkable economic transformation over the past four decades is a testament to the power of openness as a driver of growth and development. Its progressive integration into the global economy fueled rapid economic growth and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. From 1990 to 2023, China’s GDP increased from $361 billion to $17.8 trillion and per capita GDP rose nearly forty-fold. Between 2001 and 2023, urban wages increased more than ten-fold. Some 800 million people in China have been lifted out of poverty since 1980, accounting for 75 percent of the overall reduction in global poverty.  

China’s 2001 WTO accession granted China the Most-Favored-Nation status, and spurred trade liberalization in China as seen by sharp tariff cuts and the removal of many non-tariff trade barriers. Average tariffs decreased from 43 percent in 1992, to 15 percent in 2001, and then to 7 percent in 2023. The resulting import surge in China benefited consumers, upgraded domestic industries, and enhanced China’s international competitiveness. By 2024, China’s global export share reached nearly 18 percent by 2022 (from about 1 percent in the 1950s) as China provided global consumers with a wider variety of goods at lower prices.  

China’s openness extended beyond trade to foreign investment. Since initial reforms in 1978, and accelerated by WTO accession, China relaxed foreign direct investment (FDI) restrictions - its FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index fell from 0.63 in 1997 to 0.23 in 2023 while FDI inflows increased nearly 50-fold between 1990 and 2023. Openness to FDI helped to provide vital financing, enhanced productivity, created jobs, and facilitated technology dissemination. Multinational enterprises brought advanced technology and management practices to their subsidiaries, generating both horizontal and vertical spillovers to domestic firms. Between 1994 and 2013, FDI contributed up to 34 percent of China’s GDP and up to 29 percent of its employment. 

Openness to trade and investment delivered striking productivity gains. China’s aggregate labor productivity growth averaged around 7.3 percent annually over the four decades between 1979 and 2018 and its manufacturing productivity saw 3.1 percent growth between 2000 and 2009. China's innovation ability also improved, with the ranking in the Global Innovation Index rising from 37th in 2009 to 11th in 2024. 

China’s experience vividly demonstrates that openness—through trade liberalization, FDI attraction, and integration into global value chains—can be a powerful engine for poverty reduction and economic growth. To build on this success, China should further liberalize its market, remove market barriers, actively engage in new trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA), and spearhead negotiation and reform efforts at the WTO. A stable, transparent, and open environment will be essential for fostering innovation and attracting global partnerships. 

Trade Win No. 9

The success of service sector reform in Morocco

Morocco’s service sector reforms over the past 25 years helped to unleash inclusive growth, specifically growth in small and medium businesses, an increase in the women’s share of services employment, and a shift in export portfolios towards higher value-added services.  

While Morocco’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments were modest at first, more ambitious commitments eventually followed. From opening its telecommunications market to entering more ambitious agreements such as the US-Morocco FTA in 2004, Morocco developed a more conducive trade and investment climate. 

Morocco’s experience illustrates the multiplier effect: between 2015 and 2023, women’s share of services employment increased from 31.3 percent to 38.7 percent, while agricultural employment fell and industry inched up. At the same time, export portfolios shifted from low value commodities toward digital services, tourism and services intensive manufacturing such as automotive, aerospace and electronics, contributing to higher productivity and greater resilience to external shocks. 

Other economies across the Middle East and North African (MENA) region can emulate Morocco’s success. MENA’ s persistently low female labour force participation (around 20 percent) reflects structural barriers that hamper both inclusive growth and economic diversification. Expanding services trade therefore offers a dual opportunity for MENA: to both integrate more women into productive employment and to accelerate productivity gains through sectoral diversification. 

There is untapped potential for services trade in the MENA region. In 2019, women held 7.2 percent of export related jobs in OECD countries, compared with only 1.1 percent in Egypt and 0.4 percent in Saudi Arabia. Within the OECD, 55 percent of those female export-related jobs were in business services—an area where MENA economies remain underrepresented. Thus, scaling up services exports can create high-skilled, flexible employment that helps to close the gender gap.  

Moreover, efficient services are crucial inputs in manufacturing, agriculture and high-tech value chains. Liberalizing these inputs increases efficiency across the entire economy, which can create significant welfare gains.  

In conclusion, Morocco’s success in service sector reforms offer key insights on accelerating services and digital trade. Other MENA countries would benefit from reorientating their national strategies towards trade in services. Good starting points include policies based on solid data collection and diagnostics, the identification of women-friendly sectors and assessments of digital skills needs.

Trade Win No. 10

The EU-Vietnam trade agreement brings together people and businesses

The European Union and Vietnam free trade agreement (EVFTA) is a very ambitious deal, eliminating 99 percent of tariffs, opening up services and public procurement markets, and facilitating regulatory alignment and cooperation. Entering into force in August 2020, it shows Europe´s engagement in the Indo-Pacific region and it is one of the most important trade agreements the EU has done with a developing country. For Vietnam, it is an opportunity to reduce its dependence on China, further enabling its international trade integration and accelerating domestic economic reforms. The current American reciprocal tariffs are forcing countries to derisk from the US and diversify their supply chains, so the EVFTA could be developed to further facilitate EU-Vietnam trade.  

A full evaluation of the agreement has not been done yet, but according to a report from the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, Vietnam has established itself as a leading exporter to the EU within ASEAN. Vietnam´s exports to the EU increased from 35 billion euros in 2019 to 48 billion euros in 2023, mainly in areas such as agriculture, electronics and textiles. EU exports grew only moderately, from 11 billion euros in 2019 to 11.8 billion euros in 2023. European investments into Vietnam have also increased. The analysis also points to other benefits, such as smoother trade and a more predictable business environment in Vietnam.  

So, trade has increased, but there is more to be done: estimations show that the EU enjoys a 25 billion of untapped export potential and Vietnam one of 47 billion.  

There have been challenges, as always during the first years of implementation of an agreement. Vietnam has had some difficulties in complying with rules of origin, reforming the business environment, and increasing transparency in trade procedures. From the EU side, there are concerns about a crackdown on human rights defenders and formal complaints that Vietnam is violating the agreement in that regard. The human rights situation in Vietnam remains an ongoing concern.  

More efforts are needed to encourage European and Vietnamese businesses to utilize the benefits that EVFTA provides. All EU countries need to ratify the deal as there are still eight member states that have not done so. 

Vietnam is one of the 12 members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP). Recent initiatives of the EU deepening its cooperation with the members suggest an important further step to engage in the Indo-Pacific region and play an active part in one of the most exciting trade areas in the world currently. 

In sum, the trade agreement between the EU and Vietnam is boosting trade between EU and Vietnamese businesses, and facilitating cooperation in an era of increasing trade tensions.