US to take Taiwan off "Special 301" list, official says

Taiwan is likely to be removed from the US "Special 301" watch list next year after the latest US statistics showed that Taiwan has made dramatic progress in the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs), an official of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said yesterday.

Liao Chien-shun (廖乾順), deputy director-general of MOF's Directorate General of Customs, made the remarks after announcing the latest statistics released by US customs.

The statistics showed that from October last year to March this year, or the first half of the US fiscal year for this year, the value of goods seized by the US for IPR violations from Taiwan accounted for less than 1 percent of the total, far lower than the ratio of 27 percent last year, 4 percent in 2001, 14 percent in 2000 and 43 percent in 1999.

In terms of IPR violations, Taiwan is now ranked eighth, down from last year's second rating and is currently in a better position than Hong Kong, South Korea and Switzerland.

Finance officials noted that for the past five consecutive years, Taiwan has been in the top five of countries that exported counterfeit products to the US.

Taiwan was listed second in the US for fiscal year last year, fifth in 2001, second in 2000, first in 1999, and second in 1998.

Among the counterfeit products exported to the US were mainly Taiwan computer software products and video discs, which resulted in Taiwan being under threat of US trade sanctions every year.

Directorate General of Customs officials said that under a government campaign to actively protect IPR, which included the Taiwan High Court coordinating all law enforcement agents to crack down on counterfeit products and customs working to carefully check exports, Taiwan has been able to nearly choke off the supply of bogus goods to the US.

The US Trade Representative Office submits a report at the end of the fiscal year on countries with problematic trade barriers to Congress, and a month later the countries are more specifically categorized according to the severity of their trade infractions.

The US will consult with those countries listed under the priority foreign country category within six months after the release of the trade reports. If no agreement is reached, the US will adopt some form of trade sanctions.

Taiwan was listed as a priority watch list country in 1989 and was listed as priority watch list country requiring immediate action in 1993.

Taiwan was again on the watch list in 1998 after being removed from the list for three consecutive years.

Since then, Taiwan has been on the "Special 301" list every year, and in 2001 and last year, Taiwan was back on the priority watch list.