While supporting the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, Taiwan hopes the world trade body will give preferential treatment to relatively new members to cushion the impact brought about by the large-scale opening of markets at the end of next year.
"New members such as [Taiwan] and China are still making efforts to deliver on promises made upon WTO entry, such as cutting tariffs," Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) told reporters after attending an APEC ministerial meeting yesterday.
Tariff pledges
Taiwan joined the WTO on Jan. 1, 2002, and is making slow progress in fulfilling promises to lower tariffs on a wide range of goods.
"Taiwan will be forced to further drop tariffs once the Doha Round plan is concluded, which will negatively impact on local industries," Ho said.
Ho and Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
One of the top issues the meeting will address is ways to support the Doha Round of trade negotiations.
WTO focus
Trade ministers from each of the 21 APEC members will each draft stand-alone statements to express their stance, according to Hsu Chun-fang (徐純芳), deputy director general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade.
The statements will be announced by the end of the meeting tomorrow, Hsu added.
Another major issue discussed during the meeting yesterday was renewing members' commitment to APEC's Bogor Goals, which aim to achieve free trade and investment in the APEC region by 2010 for developed economies, and by 2020 for developing economies.
To facilitate this, South Korea proposed a "Busan Roadmap," which outlines what actions need to be taken.
Digital initiative
John Chen (陳忠), deputy director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' department of international organization, said that during the meeting Taiwan earned significant praise for the APEC Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC), which was initiated in 2003 to help eliminate the digital divide among member economies.
"We will continue make an effort to promote the initiative," Chen said.
Separately, Tony Ong (
Publicity
"We hope the stickers can convey the message of `Taiwan stands tall,'" Ong said.
Although Taiwan is officially called "Chinese Taipei" in APEC, Ong said that it is not subject to any restrictions on the use of its preferred designation outside official APEC conference venues.
Ong said that the GIO has also decided to place advertisements in selected South Korean media outlets during the APEC conference period to promote Taiwan's national image.
also see story:
APEC ministers aim to prod trade talks
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