The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday said that an agreement between the US and China to expand the scope of items covered in the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is likely to benefit Taiwanese companies.
Taiwanese exporters of information and communication technology are expected to save US$816 million in tariffs per year across 100 items — including LCD products, digital cameras and smartphone parts — sold to China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, the US and Malaysia after a final agreement is hammered out by the WTO, allowing the new regulations to take effect, the ministry said.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Bill Cho (卓士昭) said the ministry would like to see more key items included in the final agreement, as two of the nation’s major export items — display panels and machine tools used to produce information technology equipment — are not on the expanded list.
China imposes a 5 percent tariff on flat panels and more than 10 percent on some machine tools, leaving Taiwanese manufacturers disadvantaged compared with South Korean suppliers once a China-South Korea free-trade agreement takes effect.
According to government statistics, Taiwan’s exports of information and communication technology products have increased dramatically since it joined the ITA in 1997, jumping from US$47.7 billion in 1996 to US$153.8 billion in 2012.
Tariff cuts on semiconductors, information technology products, and electronic components under the ITA is one reason Taiwan is strong in trade, despite not having signed free-trade agreements with major countries, the ministry said.
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