Officials say US trade report is too harsh on Taiwan

Officials of the Commission of National Corporations under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday that the US should not ignore the efforts being made by Taiwan to open up its own markets.

The officials were responding to the US Trade Representative Office's annual report on foreign trade barriers earlier this week -- in which it criticized Taiwan for not doing enough to protect intellectual property rights and pointed out that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油), and Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) still dominate the Taiwanese market.

The officials countered that Taiwan began to gradually allow imports of oil products three years ago -- with fuel oil, aviation fuel, and liquefied petroleum gas being the first products to be allowed in from overseas.

The Taiwanese officials also noted that the Formosa Plastics Group (台塑) had entered Taiwan's oil market 18 months ago -- and that the market has been fully opened to oil product imports as of the start of this year. Both Chinese Petroleum and Formosa Plastics are now facing competition from multinational oil companies, the officials said. They wondered how the United States could still consider Taiwan's oil market to be dominated by a single company.

Chinese Petroleum Chairman Chen Chao-wei (陳朝威) said that he hopes the company will be able to become privatized before the end of this year.

Taipower Chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵) also said that his priority is to push for Taipower's privatization. Lin has actively lobbied legislators to support the early privatization of Taipower, hoping to complete the process by 2005.