Taiwan will discuss with China how to further facilitate cross-strait trade during the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in South Korea's Busan this month, a member of Taiwan's business delegation said yesterday.
Chinatrust Financial Holding Company (中信金控) chairman Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), who also represents Taiwan on the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), is leading the 18-member delegation.
The nation's other two ABAC representatives are Teco Group (
At the ABAC meeting with world leaders to be held on Nov. 18, Huang will share a table with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
"As business ties between us and China have been tightening, I will talk with Hu at the meeting about how we can remove bilateral trade obstacles," Huang said at a press conference yesterday.
"I'm a representative of the business community, so the topics I share with Hu should remain beyond politics," he said.
Koo will share a table with the leaders of Russia, New Zealand and the Philippines, while Kao is assigned to be in the group with the leaders of Japan, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Peru.
As Russia is a big country with potential that is rarely tapped into by local businesses, Koo said he will suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin send a delegation to Taiwan and introduce its investment opportunities to local companies.
With the theme "Entrepreneurship and Prosperity: Building a Successful Partnership in the Asia-Pacific Region," this year's APEC CEO Summit will explore issues such as the impact of China's strong economic growth on member countries, the removal of trade obstacles and forging stronger partnerships among economies in the region.
David Hong (洪德生), president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院) and executive officer of the Chinese Taipei APEC Study Center, said that Taiwan has difficulties inking bilateral free-trade agreements (FTAs) or major regional trade pacts such as that of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He said the nation should try to make a breakthrough within the international organizations of which it is a member, such as APEC and the WTO.
Hong admitted that seeing this strategy through will be hard, since APEC adopts consensus-based principles which usually keeps controversial topics off the table, while the negotiation process of 148-member behemoth WTO is rather slow.
Besides measures to buffer the possible impact of avian flu on the world economy, a major agenda item this year is how to help solve disputes -- left unresolved at the WTO Doha round of talks last year -- at the ministerial conference to be held in Hong Kong next month, such as cuts in agricultural tariffs.
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