The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: opportunities and challenges to Vietnam’s apparel exported to the US market

Abstract

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is negotiated among eleven countries from three continents: Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the USA and Vietnam. It is considered as a 21st century trade agreement because it deals with various fields, from trade in goods and services to intellectual property, labor and environmental issues. TPP therefore offers both opportunities and challenges to Vietnamese economy, especially opportunity to export goods to member markets, including the US one - a potential market for various goods from Vietnam, such as apparel, footwear and aquatic products, etc. This paper aims at presenting an overview on TPP, and estimating opportunities and challenges to Vietnamese apparel industry when exporting its output to the USA in the future as influenced by the TPP.