Vietnam said on Wednesday it must gain membership in the World Trade Organisation by mid-2006 at the latest or the country's bid to join the global trade body will risk losing momentum.
Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen said Vietnam still had a 50/50 chance to meet a self-imposed deadline for entry into the WTO by the end of 2005. But that would require significant progress in its negotiations with the United States.
"If our talks with the United States cannot be concluded by the beginning of October, it would be difficult," Truong told Reuters on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian economic ministers meeting in Laos.
"It takes time for the issue to be approved by the US Congress which is a domestic US process unlike in other countries," he said.
Economists and business leaders say only a last-minute miracle in Vietnam's talks with the United States will bounce the potential Asian economic dynamo to WTO membership this year.
The communist government's economic and legal reforms have not yet reached levels expected by the United States, its biggest trading partner with $6.4 billion between the two in 2004, just three years after a US-Vietnam trade deal came into effect.
Market access to financial and distribution services, telecommunications and legal enforcement of intellectual property rights are the main sticking points in the final rounds of WTO negotiations in September and October.
Truong expressed hope that Vietnam would be admitted to the WTO by the first quarter of 2006 and any delay beyond mid-2006 would risk a loss of its confidence in the WTO.
"Our talks are in the final stage. They should be concluded not later than the first 6 months of next year. Ideally, it should be in the first quarter," he said through an interpreter.
"If later, the talks may lose momentum and we may lose confidence in the WTO."
The mostly poor, densely populated Southeast Asian country of 82 million has made deals with 20 trading partners out of 28 needed to gain membership at the WTO's ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in mid-December, Truong said.
Time was running out, but if a deal were to be struck with the United States, the remaining seven would probably follow, economists said.
Truong said Vietnam was very keen to join the WTO but it would not do so at any price.
"They are quite demanding. If they ask too much, we will not accept," he said of US conditions for Vietnam's membership.
Major players like the European Union, China and Japan are already on board and membership would allow Vietnam to compete without limits or quotas with 150 nations and resolve disputes about protectionism more easily.