HANOI, Nov 30: World Trade Organization director general Mike Moore said here on Friday that he hoped Vietnam could become a member of the global body by late 2003.

This would be in time to take part in the negotiations on the new world trade round launched earlier this month.

“I would be enormously disappointed ... if we can’t see Vietnam at the ministerial conference in two years’ time at the table in those negotiations,” Moore told a news conference here at the end of a 24-hour visit.

Asked by AFP afterwards if he had meant he hoped to see Vietnam as a full member at those talks, he said: “Yes.”

Moore said he had been impressed by the level of commitment to WTO accession he had found in his talks with Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and other senior officials.

Ahead of his talks with the WTO chief Thursday evening, Trade Minister Vu Khoan had said he would like Vietnam to join “tomorrow” if possible.

The final ratification of a landmark trade agreement with the United States, which will lead to the lifting of punitive US tariffs, had given the communist authorities the confidence to press ahead, Moore said.

“There was a determination and a vision and a confidence because of the American agreement as a stepping stone.

“When they saw tariffs falling from 40 or 50 per cent down to five or three per cent, they saw the economic advantages to them.”

The WTO chief warned that nobody should underestimate the difficulties of accession, which would involve negotiations with all the body’s different members, some 143 countries by the end of this year.

He said he would be working closely with the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme to see what technical assistance could be provided in the arduous process that lay ahead.

Moore welcomed an initiative by some concerned ambassadors here to set up a support group for Vietnam’s accession.

He said he had been given an undertaking from the prime minister that he would receive Vietnam’s “initial offer,” its first responses to members’ concerns about its membership, before the end of the year.

The questions raised by members had originally numbered “several thousand”, although they had been whittled down by WTO officials.

They covered a range of concerns from the status of Vietnam’s large state sector, to customs valuations, intellectual property rights and the country’s legislative programme.

Moore insisted the number was perfectly “normal,” little different from other applicant countries like Russia.

He acknowledged that the WTO had faced a rush of new applicants following the buzz of excitement over China’s membership but said he regarded this as “very healthy”.

“There is excitement and apprehension about the new competition that people will face. This is a very healthy thing.”

The inclusion of agricultural subsidies on the agenda for the new world trade round launched in the Gulf state of Qatar this month had also created new interest in the WTO among developing countries, he said.

“This is a world trade organization, not the preserve of any one bloc or combination of blocs.”—AFP