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China now preventing Taiwan from accession to WTO procurement pact

Though Taiwan completed bilateral negotiations with all signatories to the World Trade Organization's Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) in December last year, the Government Procurement Committee has not yet been able to allow the nation accession to the agreement.

According to a report in local Chinese-language media, Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪), Chairwoman of the Cabinet's Public Construction Commission, last week led a group including Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬) and Senior Advisor to the National Security Council Lai Hsing-yuan (賴幸媛) for discussions with the chairman of the GPA committee and several members.

Nevertheless, Taiwan's efforts appear to have been in vain.

According to the report, the GPA committee met yesterday morning, but with the 28 members unable to reach a consensus, Taiwan's accession to the agreement was not part of the agenda. The report continued to say that the issue was still a focus of the meeting, and that the committee chairman twice introduced Huang, explaining that he was sent from Taiwan to participate in the meeting.

According to the report, Kuo had to return to Taiwan yesterday and could not attend the meeting.

The report also stated that, Huang, in his address to the meeting, said that even though Taiwan has made every effort and displayed great flexibility, it is regrettable that non-economic issues still continue to be a stumbling block to Taiwan's accession to the agreement.

Huang was reported as stressing the irony that China's constant political interference has succeeded so far in blocking Taiwan from the GPA, while the GPA's main goal is to ensure that government procurement should be a purely economic activity that does not involve political considerations.
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