Ari Kokko

Firms en­ga­ging with in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets face a vari­ety of trade costs, ran­ging from in­form­a­tion costs and tar­iff costs to costs for com­ply­ing with for­eign en­vir­on­ment­al reg­u­la­tions and costs of over­com­ing the li­ab­il­ity of for­eignness. The pro­ject aims to un­der­stand how firms (es­pe­cially MNEs) can man­age these costs in their in­ter­na­tion­al­iz­a­tion pro­cess.

Vi­et­nam’s eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment has been driv­en by for­eign dir­ect in­vest­ment and state-owned firms. The de­vel­op­ment of the do­mest­ic private sec­tor has been slow. The pro­ject aims to un­der­stand the con­sequences of this un­bal­anced de­vel­op­ment and identi­fy ways to strengthen private sec­tor de­vel­op­ment.

Vi­et­nam is heav­ily af­fected by cli­mate change, but the Vi­et­namese ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor is also a ma­jor source of CO2 emis­sions. A green trans­ition in ag­ri­cul­ture is ne­ces­sary. The EU is put­ting pres­sure on Vi­et­nam and oth­er for­eign mar­kets through the ex­tra­ter­rit­ori­al reach of the rules and re­quire­ments in­cluded in the European Green Deal (EGD). To be al­lowed into the EU mar­ket, for­eign products must also meet the re­quire­ments in the EGD. This pro­ject ex­am­ines how the EGD in­flu­ences Vi­et­nam’s agro-food sec­tor, and how do­mest­ic policies and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­forms in Vi­et­nam could help firms and farm­ers meet stricter en­vir­on­ment­al and so­cial re­quire­ments.