Local firms lack knowledge of FTAs   An employee checks a packaging production line at Ngoc Bich Engineering and Construction Co in Thai Binh Province. Many local enterprises are unaware of the TPP and AEC free trade agreements which are expected to help them integrate on global and regional scales. — VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet HA NOI (VNS) — Many local enterprises do not know much about the TPP and the AEC free trade agreements (FTAs) that are expected to be signed this year. Adequate knowledge about these FTAs would help domestic firms in Viet Nam prepare for business integration at a global and regional scale. The Viet Nam Chamber of Industry and Commerce (VCCI)'s survey for the provincial competitiveness index (PCI) 2015 reported that 30 per cent of the interviewees among enterprises in Viet Nam did not have enough information about Viet Nam having negotiated to join the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. Of these, 31.5 per cent were private enterprises and 29.8 per cent were foreign-invested enterprises, said Dau Anh Tuan, the head of VCCI's legal department. The survey also said domestic enterprises in Viet Nam expected the State to support enterprises in drawing advantages from the TPP and solving difficulties after joining the TPP and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), he said. Tuan said enterprises did not have much information about the TPP and AEC so they needed guidance to prepare well for the impact stemming from the FTAs, reported the Vietnam News Agency. The AEC is expected to be formed this year, but 76 per cent of Viet Nam's enterprises have no information about the AEC, 94 per cent of them had no knowledge of the AEC negotiation rounds and 63 per cent said they did not know anything about the business opportunities or the challenges stemming from Viet Nam joining the AEC, another survey said. To Hoai Nam, vice chairman and general director of the Viet Nam's Small and Medium- sized Enterprises, said Viet Nam's enterprises were aware of the competitive abilities of large international enterprises, but they did not possess any knowledge about the competitive abilities of firms in the ASEAN region so they had not developed clear solutions to compete with these rivals. Meanwhile, Nam said, about 10,000 enterprises from ASEAN, such as Singapore and Thailand, had already visited Viet Nam this year for conducting market studies. These regional enterprises had actively sought market information and a chance for entering Viet Nam's market, which was considered a potential market, and they would not wait until the AEC was officially established at the end of this year, he said. Tran Dinh Thien, the director of the Viet Nam Economic Research Institute, was concerned that Viet Nam had negotiated to sign several FTAs, but the local enterprises had low competitive abilities, poor national management ability and low labour productivity, compared with other enterprises in the region and the world. — VNS