El Salvador's approval on Friday of a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan means the Central American country will eventually enjoy tariff-free privileges for sugar exports of up to 60,000 tonnes to Taiwan.
The FTA is expected to take effect on Jan. 1 next year if the Legislative Yuan approves it by the end of the year.
In addition to the deal with El Salvador, Taiwan has signed FTAs with Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, with some pending legislative approval.
Since the FTA with Panama took effect, Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (
Trade with Guatemala has grown by 25 percent since the pact took effect six months ago, he said.
He said he expected trade with El Salvador to grow substantially after the FTA becomes effective.
El Salvadoran President Antonio Saca and President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen Shui-bian, visiting El Salvador on the second leg of his three-nation trip to Central America, said at the press conference he hoped the legislature would review the FTA as soon as possible in the next legislative session.
Describing Taiwan as a "good friend" and "brother," Saca said the FTA was a testimony to the two countries' firm ties.
Under the FTA's framework, Steve Chen said that El Salvador would enjoy tariff-free privileges for sugar exports up to 35,000 tonnes for the first year.
The amount will increase to 50,000 tonnes of sugar for the second year and 60,000 tonnes for the third.
Taiwan's consumes 500,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes of sugar per year, with approximately 60,000 tonnes coming from local suppliers and the rest mostly from Thailand and Australia.
Steve Chen said tariff-free sugar imports from El Salvador would not jeopardize local sugar cane farmers because the government has a purchasing system in place to protect their interests.
Because El Salvador is a member of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), which took effect in El Salvador in March last year, Steven Chen said that Taiwanese businesses operating in El Salvador were entitled to trade benefits with the US.
DR-CAFTA includes the US, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.
Signing FTAs helps lower prices and increase trade volume, Steve Chen said.
In addition to sugar, he said there was plenty of room for imports of El Salvadoran coffee. Taiwan's coffee imports totaled US$32 million last year, with US$3 million, or 11 percent coming from Central American countries.
The Taiwan-El Salvador FTA covers agriculture, manufacturing and the service sector.
Also see story:
El Salvador vows firm ties with Taiwan
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS