A Taiwan delegation, composed of officials from various government departments, arrived in Geneva Sunday to take part in bilateral and multilateral service trade talks under the WTO.
The talks, which were still in progress as of press time yesterday, are aimed at formulating detailed regulations for future global service trade.
The Taiwan delegation comprises officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the Public Construction Commission as well as from the nation's WTO mission.
A spokesman for the delegation said the talks will focus on multilateral affairs in the first week and bilateral negotiations will start from Oct. 28.
Taiwan has presented service market opening requests to 34 major trading partners and received similar requests from 11 of them.
The trading partners that have asked Taiwan to open service markets include the US, the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea. Their requests cover a wide range of service industries, ranging from financial services to telecommunications to broadcasting.
China is included in the 34 countries that Taiwan has asked for service market openings, but Chinese authorities have so far not made any response to Taiwan's request.
"Therefore, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will not have direct interaction at this stage of WTO service trade talks," the spokesman said.
A huge number of fields that require specialized skills and professionalism to maintain high standards all fall under the rubric of "service sector."
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