Vietnam's Accession to the WTO: Ex-Post Evaluation in a Dynamic Perspective

Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on January 11, 2007 has represented the outcome of decades of efforts to modernise its economy. In this paper, we propose a new general equilibrium assessment of Vietnam’s accession to WTO using a dynamic approach and benefiting from the ex-post perspective offered one year after the membership acceptation. We rely on a dynamic global model incorporating duty-drawbacks and taking into account tariff changes at the HS6 level. A particular attention is paid on the sensitivity to dynamics assumptions and labour market closure. Our results show that gains for Vietnam linked to WTO accession are positive for trade in merchandises, but highly dependent on the evolution of textile and apparel sectors, whose exports were boosted by the commitments.