Taiwan has joined forces with 16 other WTO members to press for transparent anti-dumping regulations, which would prevent abuse of the procedures by some countries, Steve Chen (
Chen made the remark at an unofficial conference during the sixth WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.
"We will try our best to safeguard our economic interests," Chen told reporters.
The group of 17 member countries which will address amending WTO anti-dumping regulations includes Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Norway, Switzerland and Brazil, among others, Chen said.
Anti-dumping actions, such as higher customs duties, are aimed at preventing foreign companies from undercutting local competitors.
These actions are frequently used to curb the sales of high-tech manufacturers in Asia, and have also been applied by some countries to protect their own industries.
Anti-dumping charges filed by other countries have affected local memory-chip and optoelectronic product makers in particular, Chen said.
Taiwan is a victim of the abuse of anti-dumping actions, Chen said.
Citing WTO statistics, Chen said that Taiwan faced 89 charges of dumping from 1995 to the end of last year, the third highest number of charges after China and South Korea.
According to WTO statistics, India and the US have filed the most anti-dumping charges against other countries, Chen said.
Major issues to be discussed in the six-day ministerial meeting include
subsidies to the agricultural sector, market access for the service industry
and tariff reduction on non-agricultural goods.
Taiwan is hoping that tariffs on some non-agricultural items will be cut to
zero. Should such an agreement be reached during the meeting, Taiwan plans
to target several markets with competitive products like textiles, bicycles,
sports equipment, jewelry and musical instruments, a ministry statement
said.
Target markets would include the US, Europe, China, India and Southeast
Asia, the statement said.
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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