Taiwan yesterday took a firm stand on its zero-tolerance policy against the use of ractopamine in meat products as Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said the government never promised to lift the ban.
“Ractopamine is legally prohibited from being used [in Taiwan.] The beef import protocol signed by Taiwan and the US stipulates that the US has to obey our laws, including the law that bans the additive,” Yang said, referring to the Standards for Veterinary Drug Residue Limits in Foods (動物用藥殘留標準).
Yang said the US might have mistakenly thought that Taiwan had made a promise to adopt the maximum residue level (MRL) standard for ractopamine in beef because it has repeatedly said that Taiwan notified the WTO of its intention to implement the MRL in 2007.
“It was just a proposal. It’s true that we notified the WTO at that time, but the proposal met with strong opposition after it was announced, forcing us to abandon the idea. We did not promise to do that. We said only that we had presented the proposal to see how it was taken by the public,” he said.
That the government did not implement the MRL did not support the allegation made by Rick Ruzicka, director for Trade and Commercial Programs at the American Institute in Taiwan in Washington, that Taiwan’s credibility as a responsible trade partner was in doubt, Yang said.
“It was not that we have broken a promise. The proposal was just an idea. There are times governments are unable to enforce policies when the policies are reported,” Yang said when questioned about the deadlock over resumption of a new round of Trade and Investment Framework Agreement talks at a Joint Council meeting between the US and Taiwan caused by the controversy over ractopamine.
At the legislature’s Foreign and Defense Committee yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yun-fang (林郁方) urged the government to scrap the zero-tolerance policy.
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