Although Taiwan has been a member of the WTO for more than a year, very few local industrialists have adequate knowledge about the world trade body and its rules, a trade official said yesterday.
"Government officials always consult business groups and associations before engaging in WTO negotiations, but we obtain few responses," Francis Liang (
"I hope more local industrialists will provide suggestions for us to ensure their own interests when doing business overseas," Liang said.
But local business leaders were mixed in their responses to Liang's comments.
Tsai Horng-ming
"The WTO issues are too wide and complex ? besides, as many of WTO negotiations have not come up with concrete conclusions yet, we don't know how to reflect our opinions," Tsai said.
Lack of resources is another problem, as over 95 percent of companies in Taiwan are small- and medium-sized enterprises which can barely devote resources to research world-trade issues, Tsai said.
An official at the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (電電公會), who spoke on condition of anonymity, also admitted that the manufacturers gave very little information to the government on WTO matters. For this, the government should take the blame, the spokesman said.
"We do care about the WTO's impact on our business, but how can we give enough feedback when we have not been offered complete information?" he said.
In addition, the official said his association has stressed the importance of a free-trade agreement to the government.
He said manufacturers had urged the government to ink such a pact with the nation's major trading partners to broaden market share for their products.
But so far, the government has made little progress in this area, except for the free-trade agreement that Taiwan signed with Panama last week.
Another group took issue with with Liang's statement that businesses here don't get involved. On the contrary, the group said, they are always there when the government needs a hand.
"We've been constantly giving opinions to the government on this issue ever since Taiwan was applying for WTO membership," said General Chamber of Commerce (
In the beginning of last year, Taiwan became the 144th member of WTO, after fighting for admission since 1990.
In addition to abiding by general rules such as market opening and tax cuts following its accession to the WTO, Taiwan started to participate in meetings to work out disagreement among members on a variety of trade issues.
The new round of ministerial meetings will take place from Sept. 10 to Sept. 14 in Cancun, Mexico. The conference will focus on execution of agreements reached in the last ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar.
Those pacts include mechanisms for reducing tariffs on agricultural and industrial goods, enforcing pharmaceutical patents and environmental issues.
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