Department of External Trade

The department is endeavoured to support the Ministry’s corporate principles and values aligning to the trade policy fundamental principles

Introduction

"The term multilateral trade negotiations initially applied to negotiations between General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade member nations conducted under the auspices of the GATT and aimed at reducing tariff and nontariff trade barriers. In 1995 the World Trade Organization replaced the GATT as the administrative body" Vanuatu as a bilateral and multilateral diplomatic country trades with nearly 70 countries mostly located in Oceania, Asia, Europe and America. The vision of the Department of External Trade under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to promote access to the domestic and international markets for Vanuatu expo which is the main target for the Ministry under the third pillar (Economic Pillar) of Vanuatu's Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP). Moving forward, Vanuatu has graduated from Least Developed Country (LDC) to Developed Country on the 4th of December 2020.

The External Trade Policy Framework guides the department to achieve its goals and visions through the implementation of the department's business plan (BP). The business plan focuses mainly on external trade negotiations and trade agreements between Vanuatu and other countries.

Vision

The department vision complements the corporate mission that is to Increase market access for Vanuatu’s international trade through the preferential trade arrangements that encourages exports and imports

Strategic Objective

“Negotiate trade agreements and market access for Vanuatu goods and services and promote specialization in areas of competitive advantage”.

Principles

The department is endeavoured to support the Ministry’s corporate principles and values aligning to the trade policy fundamental principles of an open and fair trade, non-discrimination, transparency, and predictability and special treatment to its global members.

Objective

In achieving the trade Policy and Vanuatu development goals, the Department of External Trade (DOET) is envisaged to implement them through its program, and to achieve them through its related objectives below:

To coordinate the external Trade Policy implementation and support the Department to deliver its services efficiently and effectively to all stakeholders.
To facilitate Vanuatu International Trade Exhibition and Trade Commissioners engagement to promote Vanuatu trade and investment.
To negotiate and facilitate the implementation of the multilateral trade agreements.
To negotiate and facilitate the implementation of the bilateral and regional trade agreements.

Multilateral Division

A multilateral agreement is a trade agreement established between one or more countries with the intention of reducing barriers to trade, such as tariffs, subsidies, and embargoes, that limit a nation's ability to import or export goods. Multilateral division implemented a multilateral trade policy to administrating all international trade relation and coordinating all technical work that serve to trade and develop the economic interest of Vanuatu.

Human Resource

During the Covid-19 pandemic the external trade team were faced with many challenges but still managed to participate at the bilateral and multilateral trade negotiation in different level such us the World Expo in Dubai and China international Import Expo (CIIE) in shanghai and regionally Vanuatu began to trade again with New Caledonia after a market study between both countries. In multilateral team, Bettyrose is the head of the team who’s administrating and co-ordaining all multilateral trade, international relationship. Dero Tawi, The Senior Trade Officer (Multilateral) will be responsible to assist the Principal External Trade Officer Multilateral and Regional DTA in providing technical advice specifically on Vanuatu’s WTO and EU-EPA commitments both in Goods and Services and Manage the WTO reference center establish an on-going public-private dialogue with stakeholders. Hanna K Tari the two multilateral trade officers where they focus on multilateral trade agreement and trade communication.

Conclusion

In conclusion, foreign trade is a mechanism that enhances the country's economic growth since it can create jobs, reduce poverty and open up economic prospects. As part of the World Bank Group, it helps its client countries improve their access to developed country markets and increase their participation in the global economy. Multilateral relations aim to improve international trade between countries. In the multilateral section, one of the two divisions in the department that administers the multilateral conventions, agreements of the WTO and he orders exports to foreign counties. The department works with the private sector for exhibitions of their product abroad. These exhibitions are used to conduct market studies for our products and used as a marketing strategy to find our consumers or customers (countries) to depute exports. This type of marketing survey can help to increase the exportation, and which can facilitate the efficiency of scale for private sector, and it may contribute to enlarging the reserves for the country. Furthermore, inflation promotes exportation of our products. Indeed, because the value of our currency to depreciates against other currencies and therefore it costs less for foreign importers to buy our products. Inflation therefore boosts the economic activity of our country and ultimately creates new jobs to meet the additional demand.