Australia, Peru and Vietnam have expressed interest in joining a budding Asia-Pacific tariff-busting plan that received a boost yesterday with the participation of the US, officials said.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab announced the launching of negotiations for the US to join a free trade agreement now confined to Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei.
The “Comprehensive Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership” agreement, the first trade pact involving a group of Pacific Rim countries, has a broad objective of tearing down trade barriers among participants within a decade.
The first round of negotiations for participation of the US, which has already joined discussions to free up investment and financial services among the five, will be held early next year in Singapore.
“While the United States is the first additional country to seek to join the four original members of the [agreement], we are confident that other countries in the region will ultimately embrace the benefits of participation,” Schwab told a news conference, with ministers from the four countries beside her.
“This high-standard regional agreement will enhance the competitiveness of the countries that are part of it and help promote and facilitate trade and investment among them, increasing their economic growth and development,” she said.
She did not name the countries that had shown interest in joining but officials said they were Australia, Peru and Vietnam.
“I think Australia has shown considerable interest — Peru as well — and there could be one or two other countries,” Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo (楊榮文) said.
“I know Vietnam is studying it very closely ... I am hopeful other countries will also come around,” he said.
The US decision to join the agreement will give impetus to a long-term initiative within the 21-member APEC forum to forge a free-trade agreement of the Asia-Pacific, officials said.
Aside from the US, Australia, Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei, Vietnam and Peru, APEC consists of China, Russia, Japan, Canada and other key economies.
Economies in the APEC group, which has a loose objective of achieving free trade and investment in the Pacific Rim by 2020, account for nearly half of world trade.
Yeo indicated that some APEC members could even join the trans-Pacific agreement before the APEC summit in Peru in November.
Under the agreement, tariffs on all trade products are eliminated within 12 years, with tariffs on 90 percent of trade in goods among the parties eliminated immediately.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique