EU Commissioner Phil Hogan is on a trade mission to Vietnam and Indonesia this week.

The EU has completed a free trade deal with Vietnam, which is expected to come into effect at the end of next year or early 2018. A bilateral trade deal with Vietnam offers exports of EU pork and beef as well as dairy products to the country’s 90m population.

In July, the EU opened trade negotiations with Indonesia, which has a population of 257m people. It has been estimated that the middle class in Indonesia grew from 37% in 2004 to nearly 57% in 2013, with EU food exporters keen to tap into this growing market. The next round of negotiations are due to start in January 2017.

The trade mission is being labelled as “Tastes of Europe” with Commissioner Hogan stating that there is “enormous potential in these countries to improve our balance of trade”.

Making talks complicated is the issue surrounding both nations not recognising the EU as a single entity and instead negotiating bilaterally with individual Member States. This is something that Hogan will be keen to address in this week’s mission.

The commissioner also has meetings scheduled in Hong Kong as part of the trip. The next EU trade mission is planned for Turkey before the end of the year to increase access for live exports.

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