Deals sought with new WTO members

Among 25 new-member applicants to the WTO, Taiwan plans to conduct bilateral talks with seven countries, asking them to open their markets to Taiwan, an official at the Board of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed yesterday.

"The seven countries -- Vietnam, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Cambodia and Laos -- have a relatively higher trade volume with Taiwan than the other applicants," the official surnamed Wu said yesterday.

Having been a WTO member for over one year, Taiwan is now entitled to hold consultations with new WTO applicants before they finalize their membership application to the trade body. Taiwan itself had to cut separate deals with WTO members in working-group talks for over 15 years before it was finally awarded the membership last January in tandem with China's WTO accession.

Taiwan will review their tax and tariff policies and the openness of their service sector, asking for preferential tariffs on imports to benefit Taiwanese exporters or boost Taiwanese investment there, Wu said.

Among the seven countries, Vietnam has gradually become a popular investment location for Taiwanese, with growing trade ties between the two countries.

Since Vietnam has promised member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to lower some of its tariffs to below 5 percent in 2004, Taiwan will ask for the same preferential treatment, said another foreign trade official surnamed Wang, who is in charge of preparations for bilateral talks with Asian countries.

Wang said that the government wants to strike deals with Cambodia and Laos to create a better investment environment for Taiwanese manufacturers.

"In line with the Cabinet's go-south policy, traditional manufacturers may be able to reduce business risks by diversifying their outbound investments," Wang said.

Taiwan attended the 16th round of working group talks with Russia in December, said another foreign trade official surnamed Lin, who is in charge of preparations for bilateral talks with East European countries.

Lin said that Taiwan hopes that Russia can provide tax-free treatment on imports of information-technology products from Taiwan, which Russia seems happy to facilitate since it plans to sign the WTOs Information Technology Agreement.

In accordance with the agreement, its current 56 participants enjoy tax-free treatment on IT imports.

Taiwan also hopes that Russia will eliminate taxes on agricultural products from Taiwan, he said.

Taiwan is running a trade deficit with Russia because local manufacturers and processors purchase large amounts of raw materials, such as wood and pig iron, from Russia.

All WTO bilateral issues require many rounds of negotiations, so no immediate results are expected, foreign trade officials said.