Assignment 1 Professional Project U.S. Non-tariff barriers to Vietnamese Seafood Exports Name: Minh Thien Ngo Student ID: S0281072 Course: BUSN20019 Date: 23/04/2017 Word count: 1643 words Executive Summary Almost countries have been integrating into international trade with the engagement of cutting down tariff barriers. Instead, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) become widespread in most industries, in particular in the international exchange of primary and processed agricultural and aquacultural products (Tran Van Nam, 2005). Recently, a remarkable number of seafood products of Vietnam have been repatriated at US ports due to their failing in meeting the U.S. tight requirements on food hygiene and safety, causing considerable losses to Vietnamese seafood exports. This report discusses NTBs which have been applied to Vietnamese seafood products as a mean of import restrictions. Also, the report aims to evaluate the impact of TBTs on Vietnamese seafood exported to the U.S. market.Finally, some solutions for this problem may contribute to Vietnam’s business community, assist to expand its trade volume with the U.S and gain a solid foothold in this crucial market. Table of contents Page 1. Project Context…………………………………………………………. 3 2. Project Proposal…………………………………………………………. 4 2.1. Background and definition………………………………………. 4 2.2. Objectives………………………………………………………… 6 2.3. Literature review…………………………………………………. 6 2.4. Methodology………………………………………………………8 2.5. Gantt Chart………………………………………………………. 9 References………………………………………………………………….. 9 1. PROJECT CONTEXT In the current trend of globalization, the business is not only conducted domestically, but also extends to the international market.Integrating into the international market is the current trend of business development. The international business sector plays the role of promoting business activities to the world. International business is a dynamic and global field that provides general knowledge of business administration, strategic and transnational business strategies to satisfy business goals of individuals and economic organizations. Based on that trend as well as my own interest, I chose the international business sector as my major. I wish to become an International Business Consultant in the future. Basically, an international business consultant in international business sector needs to provide advices to customers related to how to make contacts overseas and understands various international laws in trade so as to make easier to buy and sell goods in the currentgrowing and increasingly complex international marketplace. In order to satisfy this position, one of the important requirement for foreign business consultant is to be professional. The term ‘professional’ is mentioned quite a bit these days, perhaps too much. According to Peltason (2015),no one can enter the workforce with fully developed skills. Thus, in order to achieve goals and enhance the working position, everyone needs to become a profession in their careers. Firstly, we need to know the meaning of ‘profession’. The word ‘profession’ is not defined the same by different people. In essence, however, it means an indicator of expertise andtrust (Finestone, 2012). Due to the current fast-changing environment of expertise andknowledge, people normally understand that earning from a particular task may make you good at your job or become an ‘expert’. However, if someone is a “professional”, this has a much broader meaning. In accordance with Machan, T. (2015), being a professional is related to qualified things and to practice in a definable area with the commitment to that area and have expertise based on a high level of knowledge. According to Dale Atkins (2015), being a professional is not just a destination, but is a process. It is a journey which has some real interval driver motivation. In essence, a process to become a professional includes four elements: Knowing, Doing, Helping and Learning. Knowing means having knowledge or information concerning. To achieve ‘Knowing’, people need to learn as much as possible to gain knowledge and apply it into real life (to do something). Having the dream of becoming a foreign business consultant, I need to focus on achieving knowledge regarding international trade and international business laws. Moreover, knowledge can be combined with skills in order to solve more issues. This leads to the second step -‘Doing’. This means people with their own knowledge and skills start to have some action or doing something. These two steps’ resultsmay be considered to make differences in people’s lives. Finally, people need to take ‘Learning’ step to keep that process going and developing. This step is really important to help achieve higher goals in the workplace. In fact, the more uncertainty we face, the more important professional becomes. To become an international business consultant, the writer realizes that professional is a crucial process that requires to be gone through to get higher level in career. 2. PROJECT PROPOSAL 2.1. BACKGROUND AND DEFINITION Vietnamese-US trade developed rapidly over the period of time from 2005 to 2016, and took a large proportion inimport-export turnover of Vietnam (32%, according to Vietnam General Statistic). Vietnam export share to the US is expected to increase by 15-20% in 2016 compared to 5-6% in 2005. The bilateral trade agreement between Vietnam and US has opened the door for Vietnamese goods like seafood, textiles, footwear, coffee ... penetrate the U.S. market. Particularly, seafood was amongproducts which accounted for the largest share in the export of goods from Vietnam to USA in 2005-2016.Vietnam seafood exports to the U.S have increased over these years, however, this value is significantly under its potentials. Both Vietnam and U.S participate in lots of international trade agreements like WTO, ASEAN+3 with the engagement of cutting down tax barriers.However, there are a various range of USA’s non-tariff trade restrictions facing Vietnamese seafood exporters which make Vietnamhardto enter this huge market. According to Alan.D. (2012),non-tariff barriers are impeding billions of dollars in trade and contribute to inhibit seafood export potential. In this report, the writer provides some assessment in industry perspectives about US. non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to Vietnamese exports in the seafood sector. The project aims to paint an overview picture of U.S.non-tariff restrictions facing Vietnamese exporters, especially in the seafood field. Vietnam has increasingly integrated into the global economy. During this integration process, one of the most important objectives is to eliminate the tariff and non-tariff barriers in trade. To evaluate the foreign markets and sell to international clients, Vietnam’s seafood exporters have to satisfy a lot of the requirements of market entry. Some of these requirements can make the negative effect that restricts the trade flows, the competitiveness as well as commercial viability of Vietnamese seafood exports. Seafood products are among the most heavily protected goods in international trade (Sushil,M. 2012). Vietnamese exporters may face significant tariffs and non-tariff restrictions in the important markets, including the U.S. For the purpose of this paper, the writer refers to the OECD’s definition that non-tariff barriers include all government measures that affect trade other than formal tariffs which have the effect of restricting trade between nations. Besides, in accordance with WTO, ‘non-tariff barriers (or non-tariff measures) are considered to be any policy measures other than tariffs that can affect trade. They may include quotas,levies, embargoes and other restrictions which are often applied by developed economies. NTBs are other ways for a country to make the control of its trade volume conducted with other economies, either for altruistic or selfish purpose. 2.2. OBJECTIVES The main purpose of this report is to research, analyze and assess the non-tariff barriers of the U.S to Vietnam’s seafood exports. Furthermore, there are some recommendations for enhancing Vietnamese seafood exports to the U.S. To achieve the final goal, the research needs to help to answer these following questions - What are the non-tariff barriers to trade? - Which types of non-tariff barriers has the U.S applied to seafood imports from foreign countries, including Vietnam? - How can these barriers affect Vietnamese seafood exports? - How can Vietnam enhance its seafood exports to U.S. market? 2.3. LITERATURE REVIEW OECD has a study of NTBswith a dynamic, complex and somewhat mixed picture of regarding evidences. This research especially focuses on applying NTBs to developing countries. GATT’s establish affected the international trade a lot. Regarding to the Institutional Constraint on the Use of Tariffs, GATT is considered as an institution which has the initial mission of restricting the use of tariffs in foreign trade. Because of this mission, policymakers were forced to use non-tariff barriers in order to meet the needs of protection. Therefore, in this case, NTBs are simply a substitute or a replacement for tariff devices to restrict imports. In fact, Ray shows in a study (1989) that using NTBsin international trade aims to reverse the impact of multilateral tariff reductions negotiated under GATT. Secondly, regarding the certainty of benefits domestic, Deardorff (1988) points out that NTBs are favored than tariff barriers because of the policymakers’ belief that tariffs have less certain impactson international trade. According to UNCTAD’s classification, the full ranges of NTBs can be listed as follows: Source: UNCTAD (2015) Nowadays, countries have many "weapons" used for the aims of trade protection. For example, theU.S.non-tariff barriers have extinguished opportunities of many products such as Chinese toys and traditional medicine to enter the U.S. market. Particularly, the California stateof the U.S has specified over 110 Chinese traditional medicine containing the content of heavy metals exceeding permissible standards for drinking water in California and requires all these medicines to have the label of "poisonous" outside. Other non-tariff barriers could be reflected through the enactment of Bioterrorism Act of 2002 that applies lots of strict requirements to food export companies to the United States, where they must register with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before these goods enter the country’s border. Failure incomplying with the regulations can lead to goods being refused entry at the U.S. ports and prosecution of exporters.The emergence of invisible NTBs has created an overall negative trading environment. 2.4. METHODOLOGY Various methodologies will be used to perform US. non-tariff barriers to Vietnamese seafood exporters, including price comparison measures and quantity impact measures, frequency/coverage measures, and residuals of gravity-type equations. The most ambitious attempt to date, in terms of both theoretical grounding and country/tariff line coverage, is contained byDeardorff and Stern, (1997), who seek a consistent measure of the trade-restrictiveness of NTBs that can be compared to tariffs. Besides, the writer will assess the impact of U.S non-tariff barriers on Vietnamese seafood export based on the model Ordinary Least Square (OLS) applied by Duc (2010), Kinnucan (2007) regarding the volume and the price of Vietnamese seafood products in the U.S. market. The data collected for this project will be the secondary data, including theories regarding non-tariff barriers or non-tariff restrictions. The writer will use the datain the 7-year period 2010-2016 from in-text books, scholar articles, newspapers and some websites. The information about NTBs applied by the U.S to imports and Vietnam-U.S seafood trade will be collected from WTO, FAO and Vietnam General Statistic. 2.5. GANTT CHART The timeline for completing the whole project is indicated in the following table. Task name Start day End day Duration (days) Project proposal 25/3/2017 2/4/2017 7 Literature Review 3/4/2017 12/4/2017 10 Data Collection 13/4/2017 25/4/2017 13 Data Analysis 26/4/2017 10/5/2017 15 Final Report Submission 11/5/2017 25/5/2017 15 REFERENCES Alan.D. (2012).Easing the burden of non-tariff barriers.The Journal of International Trade Center, 52(3), 21-33. Anna Post: Professionalism in the 21st Century. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEV44sbAGOQ Ardakani, Z., Yazdani, S., &Gilanpour, O. (2009). 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