To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the rules regarding trade with Vietnam were last reviewed by the Co-ordinating Committee on Multilateral Exports; and when they will next be reviewed.

Vietnam is one of the proscribed destinations listed in schedule 2 to the Export of Goods (Control) Order 1989, as amended. Equipment and technology, the export of which is controlled to the proscribed destinations, is subject to a regular rolling review undertaken with our COCOM partners, with one quarter of the items being examined each year. All the industrial dual-use items on the control list are under review at the present time as part of a special exercise being undertaken by COCOM partners to reduce controls to a core list of the most strategically sensitive items.