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US, Taiwan to talk trade next week

Taiwan and the US will hold their next high-level trade negotiations next Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) announced on Monday.

The sessions, held under the two countries' Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), will aim to resolve a number of issues that have caused friction, including farm policy, pharmaceuticals and intellectual property piracy.

It will also deal with regional and multilateral trade matters, AIT said. Such issues have grown in importance in recent years as China has expanded its economic ties with Southeast Asia and other countries around the region, often at Taiwan's expense, and as multilateral trade arrangements in the region have multiplied.

The meetings will be the sixth in a series since the TIFA was established in 1994. The last meeting was held in Taipei in May last year.

John Deng (鄧振中), the chief representative of the Office of Trade Negotiations under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, will head the Taiwanese delegation. Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia will head the US team.

AIT said the agenda would include "discussion of ways to deepen economic cooperation between the Unityed States and Taiwan on issues including investment, taxation, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, government procurement, intellectual property rights [IPR] and trade security."

In a hearing of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last month, Bhatia said that the TIFA sessions were "going very well," adding that "we are working concretely to address barriers sector by sector ... and it's proving to be quite successful."

"We are obviously very focused and committed to deepening and strengthening our trade relationships with Taiwan as a major trading partner for us," he said.

Bhatia also reiterated that a free-trade agreement (FTA) between Washington and Taipei was not in the cards, especially with the June 30th expiration of the so-called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which allows speedy approval of FTAs.

A number of agreements were reached at last year's meeting, including a consultative mechanism to advance cooperation on IPR, and creation of a high-level agricultural council to address the full range of agriculture and trade issues.

IPR remains one of the most contentious issues. In April, the US Trade Representative office decided to keep Taiwan on its so-called "Watch List" of countries with serious IPR problems for at least another year. Except for a few years Taiwan has been on the list most of the time since the 1990s.

While the US praised Taiwan for its record of stepped up enforcement and legislative actions, it made clear that piracy over the Internet, especially over the Ministry of Education's TANet service, plus copyright violations at universities, kept Taiwan on the list.

Other issues that the US has identified as areas of trade friction include access to Taiwanese markets for US beef and rice, and questions about pharmaceutical pricing, transparency and regulation.
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