After over 11 years of preparation, including eight years of negotiation, Vietnam has officially become the 150th member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) upon the General Council's approval of the country's membership agreement on November 7, 2006.
The country now readies for the challenges and opportunities accompanying its entrance to the WTO.

By opening Vietnam to world trade, it is anticipated that agriculture, the distribution sector, and the labour market are among the sectors that will face various disadvantages.

Vietnam's membership to WTO means that the government will not be allowed to subsidise its agricultural products. Tax barriers will also be gradually removed and foreign-made goods, which have a higher quality and lower price, will infiltrate the market.

Furthermore, the fact that a large section of the population likes foreign-made products, make it extra difficult for domestic distributors to thrive, especially with foreign distributors, who have the capital, management and business experience, establishing large-scale professional retailing systems.

On the labour sector, increase in international trade leads to growth in labor demand in capital and technology-intensive industries, leading to the creation of more jobs. However, this entails drops of labor demand in some sectors or enterprises, which, coupled with severe competition, leads to redundancy and unemployment. This also means that the imbalance between supply and demand of labor may result to the widening of income gap among worker groups.

These anticipated situations in agriculture, the retail business, and the labour sector will surely make it difficult for the local people to compete with giants in the world business. According to International Press Service News Agency, “The government's big concern is how to ensure competitiveness and sustainable growth in the midst of international economic integration.”

More importantly, impact on women of this WTO agreement is yet to be heard and seen. Although, generally, Athena Peralta in her article titled “Gender and Trade-Finance Linkages: A Summary of the Key Issues,” points out that, “The empirical record would show that neoliberal trade policies have had adverse impacts on poor people’s—especially poor women’s—livelihoods and access to basic needs. The latter may be traced to gendered norms and structures that dictate the terms and conditions of women’s participation in the global economy.”

More than the economic impact, the gender and social implications of Vietnam's accession to the WTO is far greater, hence, needs to be addressed immediately.

Sources:
“General Council approves Viet Nam’s membership” from the World Trade Organization, posted on November 7, 2006, <http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres06_e/pr455_e.htm>.
“Help farmers integrate into WTO” from Communist Party of Vietnam Online Newspaper, posted on November 13, 2006, <http://www.cpv.org.vn/details_e.asp?topic=29&subtopic=118&leader_topic=185&id=BT12110665755>.
“Labour and Social Issues Emerging from Vietnam's Accession to the WTO” <http://www.yesweb.org/2006/Publications_Papers%20_august%203_2006/Agenda%20Links/Second%20Session/LabourExport_WTO_VietnamAccession.pdf>.
Peralta, Athena. (2006). “Gender and Trade-Finance Linkages: A Summary of the Key Issues.”
Trade-Finance Linkages and Gender: Implications to Asian Women. Retrieved from <http://www.igtn.org/pdfs//459_Trade-Finance%20Linkages%20and%20Gender%20(IGTN-Asia%20Economic%20Literacy%20Packet%206).pdf>.
“VIETNAM: WTO Brings Challenges and Opportunities” from Inter Press Service News Agency, posted on November 8, 2006, <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35411>.
“Vietnamese retailers' competitiveness after Vietnam’s WTO accession” from Communist Party of Vietnam Online Newspaper, posted on November 10, 2006, <http://www.cpv.org.vn/details_e.asp?topic=29&subtopic=118&ID=BT9110662050>.