Vietnam has promulgated a detailed rules of origin for goods exported from Vietnam to be considered as “made in Vietnam”. These rules include Decree 31/2018 and its implementing regulations. In addition, various international trade treaties to which Vietnam is a party also have their own rules of origin (e.g., ATIGA).

On the other hand, Vietnam has no clear rules in determining whether a product sold in Vietnam market is considered as being “made in Vietnam” (Made-in-Vietnam Criteria). According to Article 2(d) and Article 3(c) of WTO’s Agreement on Rules of Origin, WTO’s members must ensure that the rules of origin that they apply to imports and exports are no more stringent than the rules of origin they apply to determine whether or not a good is domestic and will not discriminate between other members, irrespective of the affiliation of the manufacturers of the good concerned. This means that the rules of origin apply to products manufactured and traded within Vietnam (i.e., Made-in-Vietnam Criteria) such as products of the Project can be:

• equivalent to those that apply to imports and exports; or

• more stringent than those that apply to imports and exports. Currently, there are no rules of origin, which are directly applicable to products manufactured in Vietnam and are more stringent than those applicable to imported products.

In other words, products manufactured and traded within Vietnam are always subject to equal or more stringent rules of origin than those applicable to imported products.

In 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) released a draft circular on Made-in-Vietnam Criteria. However, according to a newspaper report, for several reasons, the draft has not been adopted. In September 2023, a committee of the National Assembly has requested the Government to complete the issuance of the Made-in-Vietnam Criteria with a goal to minimize its impact to local companies.

In the absence of clear Made-in-Vietnam Criteria, Decree 43/2017 on goods labelling provides that:

“Each organisations manufacturing .... goods shall, on its own, determine and record the origin of its goods to ensure honesty, accuracy, and compliance with (1) legal provisions on origin of goods ... produced in Vietnam or (2) international treaties to which Vietnam is a party”

A technical reading of this provision suggest that a Vietnamese company can use the rules of origin in an international treaty of Vietnam to determine the origin of its products for goods sold in Vietnam market. That said, it appears that this interpretation is not the intention of the authority.

This post is rewritten by Nguyen Quang Vu.