Negotiations with diplomatic ally Guatemala on a free-trade agreement (FTA) could start next month, a Bureau of Foreign Trade official said yesterday.
"We have begun preparatory work and expect the negotiations to start in February at the earliest," bureau Director-General Huang Chih-peng (
Vice President Annette Lu (
The two governments were set to start negotiations in the last quarter of last year with the aim of concluding the pact in December this year. But the talks were delayed because of a reshuffle in the Guatemalan government after its presidential election in November.
"The Taiwan-Guatemala FTA, if followed through, would help Taiwanese businessmen expand their market to America," Huang said. Guatemala is Taiwan's 76th largest trading partner, with bilateral trade amounting to US$73.67 million in the first 10 months of last year.
The profits of investing in Guatemala, as well as Panama, will be amplified after the realization of the 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which will enable goods produced by member nations to circulate within the region duty free, Huang said.
Faced with regional integration around the world, Taiwan has been pursuing bilateral free-trade cooperation to avoid being marginalized.
The government signed a free-trade pact with Panama in August, and is still in talks with the US, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, although China has been working behind the scenes to undermine the negotiations.
The US has been reluctant to launch talks on a trade and investment framework agreement (TIFA), a stepping stone toward a Taiwan-US FTA, over disputes concerning Taiwan's intellectual property rights protection, rice import quotas and the prices of medicines.
But Huang said that talks with the US, Taiwan's second largest trading partner after Japan, were moving steadily.
"We're delighted that the negotiations on a TIFA may soon be activated as the US officials who visited Taiwan in December last year generally approved of our efforts on improving various issues they were concerned about," he said.
Officials from teh Office of the United States Trade Representative met Taiwanese representatives in Washington yesterday to discuss the issue, Huang said.
As well as seeking FTA partners, Huang said, the country would also be targeting South Korea and India as markets for Taiwan-made goods.
Taiwan began to run a trade deficit with South Korea in 1989, and the gap grew to nearly US$5 billion in 2000. The imbalance in trade prompted the bureau to help Taiwanese businesses enter the South Korean market, Huang said.
He said the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) would try to boost exports to South Korea through its ties with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).
India, the world's second fastest growing economy after China, will be a promising market for Taiwan's information technology industry because of strong demand, Huang said.
"We hope to open more markets for our businesspeople to avoid the risks brought by investment concentration in a few countries such as China," he added.
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