Taiwan has finalized bilateral service market opening consultations with 15 major trading partners under the framework of the WTO, an official with the ROC mission stationed in Geneva said Thursday.
In addition to its WTO mission, Taiwan sent 10 officials from its economics, finance, transportation and justice ministries -- as well as its information service and telecommunications departments -- to take part in the negotiations with the world's major trading powers, including the US, the EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and India.
Over the past week, the Taiwan delegation has held 20 rounds of talks with those trading partners on a broad range of topics regarding service market liberalization, the official said.
"The topics covered the telecommunications, financial services, shipping, television broadcasting, legal services, advertising, education and energy service sectors, " the official explained. These talks were the most intensive bilateral consultations Taiwan has held since joining the WTO early this year, he added.
The official described the negotiations as very fruitful, saying that all of Taiwan's trading partners are satisfied with the extent of Taiwan's service market opening commitment.
Through bilateral consultations, Taiwan has come to a better understanding of other countries' priorities regarding service market liberalization, the official said.
"The experiences we have drawn from these rounds of bilateral talks will contribute to our future bilateral and multilateral negotiations," he said.
"These rounds of talks were mainly aimed at understanding our trading partners' demands regarding our service market opening steps," he said.
But "substantial talks will not begin until next March when our major trading partners will produce their market-opening lists," he added.
Although direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait were not a topic on the agenda, representatives of many countries did ask privately whether direct cross-strait shipping services are likely to open in the near future, the official said.
Meanwhile, the US delegation posed many questions about the technical details of Taiwan's market opening in the broadcasting, legal services, financial services and education sectors, he said.
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