Taiwan conducted several bilateral meetings with its APEC counterparts yesterday on a variety of issues, Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (
In particular, during talks with WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, Ho said she has expressed the government's hope to be included in the WTO's Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), as Taiwan made the promise as a condition of its WTO entry to accede to the pact one year after accession, but it has yet to be approved by other members.
Ho said Taiwan has talked with trade officials from the US, Canada, Vietnam and Indonesia over issues such as beef imports, industrial cooperation and easing trade and investment barriers. It will also arrange bilateral meetings with other countries which are still under negotiation, she said.
Reopening Taiwan to beef imports from the US is a main concern of US officials, but Ho said the decision is up to the Department of Health.
Given the huge number of Taiwanese investments in Vietnam, Ho called on Vietnamese officials to remove trade obstacles for Taiwanese companies doing business in that country.
She also said the 21 economics ministers at the APEC meeting had endorsed a joint statement renewing their commitment to establishing a free-trade area in the region by 2020.
Although some APEC ministers have said next month's WTO talks in Hong Kong would collapse if the EU did not make a bigger cut in its farm subsidies, Ho said APEC members hope to adopt "sectoral tariff reductions" as a way to move forward the negotiations.
For example, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the US have agreed to cut tariffs to zero on integrated circuit modules used in electronics and telecommunications products, she said.
In related news, Teco Group (
Huang told reporters that he would propose the realization of direct cross-strait transportation at a group meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
He said he would also probe Hu's intentions toward inking a free-trade pact with Taiwan.
Lin Hsin-yi (
Lin is staying at the same hotel as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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