Twenty-one Asia-Pacific economies making up half of world commerce made a plea on Thursday against protectionism and urged a quick breakthrough in global trade talks to beat the financial crisis.
Trade and foreign ministers met for two days of in-depth talks in Peru's capital Lima, seeking a formula to tear down tariff walls — the key roadblock in global trade negotiations — by the end of the year.
The push to resurrect the Doha round of WTO talks comes despite rising criticism of globalization in some quarters, as the world economy suffers its worst crisis since the Great Depression.
“We will stand firm against any protectionist sentiment arising out of this crisis,” ministers at the APEC forum said in a joint statement.
The ministers were laying the groundwork for a weekend leaders' summit, which is the last scheduled foreign trip for outgoing US President George W. Bush.
The ministers pledged to work to resolve the key WTO sticking point of tariff barriers by the end of next month, paving the way for an elusive global trade pact.
“A strong agreement would demonstrate the ability of the international community to work together to bolster a deteriorating global economy,” the statement said.
Leftist workers planned to meet Bush on his arrival yesterday with protests blaming him for setting off the global economic crisis by championing free trade.
Bush's successor, president-elect Barack Obama, backs free trade but has criticized US deals with some APEC members as harmful to US workers. US unemployment claims soared to a 16-year high, government data showed on Thursday.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab predicted that Obama would also pursue free-trade pacts.
“We all brought lessons from what happened in the 1930s when the United States and other countries took the wrong approach by raising barriers” and worsened the Great Depression, she said.
Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley said “we are simply running out of time” to show the potential of free trade.
“We can produce excellent news on the financial crisis if we have a Doha agreement in the next couple of months,” he told reporters. “We can also provide an excuse for those pushing for protectionism if we don't get the Doha round done.”
Free trade talks collapsed in July owing to acrimony between rich and developing countries — particularly the US and India — on how far to go in protecting poor farmers from the globalized economy.
The APEC ministers called on their leaders, including Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), to offer support to wrap up the global trade talks, launched in the Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.
“We are in a state of emergency,” Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said. “I sensed a strong determination in the region to work together.”
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Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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