HANOI — Four European countries will maintain zero import tariffs on Vietnamese industrial and seafood products once a new free trade agreement takes effect, but Vietnam will take up to 11 years to cut or remove its own duties on most such goods from them. Xinhua, citing the Vietnam News Agency, reported that the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Vietnam signed the agreement in Hanoi on Sunday.
The Swiss side was already in the capital. In a statement from Bern dated Saturday, the Swiss Federal Council said President Guy Parmelin was welcomed by Vietnamese President To Lam during an official visit to Hanoi that day, and that both sides called signing the agreement “an important political gesture that reaffirms their shared commitment to open, rules-based trade.”
The timetable is where the two sides differ. EFTA’s members, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, keep zero tariffs on Vietnam’s industrial and seafood goods, while Hanoi opens its market by stages. Selected farm products, among them cheese, coffee and chocolate, will get duty-free access to Vietnam, subject to a transition period of up to 16 years.
How much trade is at stake depends on who is counting. Xinhua reported that bilateral trade averages nearly 2 billion US dollars a year. EFTA said in July that trade in 2025 was 4.8 billion euros, with a Vietnamese surplus of 2.5 billion euros, up from 0.5 billion a decade earlier, and that its Swiss figures exclude gold. Xinhua does not say which years its average covers.
The talks were relaunched in Geneva on 8 September 2025 and ran over five rounds, EFTA said, and the conclusion announced on 2 July followed a ministerial meeting in Reykjavik on 22 June. Xinhua lists Vietnam’s main exports as seafood, footwear, textiles, machinery and electronics. EFTA’s own list of its top 2025 exports to Vietnam includes fish, next to electrical machinery and pharmaceuticals.
In the Swiss statement, both sides also stressed their mutual interest in concluding negotiations on a modernised investment protection agreement. The programme for Sunday was to include the opening of a Swiss-Vietnamese economic forum, and a Swiss business delegation was to accompany Parmelin on the trip.
Xinhua’s account gives no date for the agreement to take effect. It also does not say which products fall under the 11-year schedule and which under the 16-year one, beyond the cheese, coffee and chocolate it names.
