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Trade pact with Guatemala imminent, officials say

Taiwan is close to securing its second free-trade partner and could sign an agreement with Guatemala as soon as June, a government official said yesterday.

The optimism came after the conclusion of the first round of negotiations with Guatemalan trade representatives in Taipei yesterday.

"The four-day talks proceeded smoothly. Only a few matters are left for further discussions, such as the establishment of a schedule for lowering import tariffs on around 10,000 items," said top negotiator Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬), the director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade.

The two sides plan to discuss the crucial tariff issue in the next round of negotiations, to be held on April 11 in the Latin American country, Huang said.

Huang said the negotiators aim to wrap up the trade talks with Guatemala on a free-trade agreement (FTA) in June or July this year, which would make Guatemala the second country after Panama to sign a bilateral trade pact with Taiwan.

Trade between Taiwan and Guatemala amounted to around US$114 million last year, but Huang said imports from the Latin American country should triple in the first year after inking the trade pact.

Taiwan is under pressure to move quickly to establish more FTAs with its major trading partners to fend off being marginalized economically as ASEAN expands its scope to China and Japan, to the detriment of the local market.

Taiwan is also aggressively seeking to establish FTAs with Nicaragua, Paraguay, Japan and the US.

"It's a policy we're working on," Huang confirmed yesterday.

However, a bumpy road lies ahead. FTA talks with Paraguay ground to a halt after the first round of talks last August. Paraguay's membership in the Mercosur trade bloc prevents it from singing any trade pact with another country without the bloc's consent.

Mercosur, established in March 1991, consists of Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

"Due to the restriction, we have to postpone talks with Paraguay," Huang said.
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