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Taiwan, US and Japan go to WTO over EU duties

Taiwan, joined by the US and Japan, on Monday asked the WTO to settle a case in its favor against the EU by ordering the EU to eliminate its import duties on certain high-technology products of which Taiwan is one of the world’s biggest producers.

In the first joint US-Taiwan complaint in the WTO since Taiwan was admitted to the organization in 2001, the three countries asked the WTO to establish a dispute settlement panel, after talks with the EU failed to resolve the issue under the organization’s preliminary consultation process.

The WTO is expected to take up the request to establish the panel at its next meeting on Aug. 29, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in announcing the request in Washington.

PRODUCTS

At issue are three widely used products: cable boxes that enable TV sets to access the Internet, flat-panel computer monitors and advanced computer printers that can fax, scan and copy.

Schwab estimated that the world’s exports of these products totaled US$70 billion last year.

The three countries claim that under the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) — signed by virtually all the world’s countries — the EU had pledged duty-free treatment for the three products.

TARIFFS

But in 2006, the EU imposed tariffs of 14 percent on the monitors, 13.9 percent on the cable boxes and 6 percent on the printers, in violation of it’s ITA commitment.

When Taiwan decided to join the US and Japan in the complaint late last month, Chen Chern-chyi, the Office of Trade Negotiation’s top negotiator, said that the EU had imposed the tariffs “in an attempt to attract Taiwanese LCD [liquid-crystal display] firms who wish to avoid high tariffs to set up factories in Eastern Europe.”

Taiwan is a major producer of all three products at issue, especially the cable boxes and the flat screens, a Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office official in Washington said.

Taiwan’s annual production of the flat screens has exceeded NT$1 trillion (US$31.9 billion) since 2006 and is expected to generate NT$2 trillion by 2015, official statistics show.

News reports said that the value of flat-screen exports to the EU was estimated at NT$100 billion last year.

Taiwan, the US and Japan held two rounds of talks with the EU last month, but early this month Chen said: “the atmosphere was amicable, but there was no solution.”


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