Taiwan’s exclusion from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) would have little effect on local exporters, because most firms already have a presence in Southeast Asia to take advantage of the favorable tariff terms there, government officials said yesterday.
Fifteen Asia-Pacific nations on Sunday signed the free-trade deal to form a trade bloc that accounts for nearly 30 percent of global GDP.
Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee that tariffs are already exempted on about 70 percent of Taiwanese shipments to RCEP markets.
Photo: Chien Jung-feng, Taipei Times
“The formation of the trade body, which is to expand the scope of tariff concessions [between the 15 member nations] from the current 90 percent to 92 percent, would have a very limited impact on Taiwan’s competitiveness,” Su said.
The difference of 2 percentage points is mild, he added.
Lawmakers from across party lines voiced concern that Taiwan would be marginalized internationally after failing to join the trade body and because of the transition in power in the US after US President Donald Trump lost the election.
RCEP members have negotiated trade terms for the past eight years during which time major Taiwanese companies have made inroads in ASEAN markets, giving them access to free trade, Su said.
The government has also encouraged local companies to diversify their investments beyond China under the New Southbound Policy, he added.
The National Development Council shared similar observations, saying that Taiwan-made semiconductors make up 60 percent of shipments to RCEP destinations and there is no tariff on semiconductors and related products due to international technology pacts and protections.
Some RCEP member nations have lowered tariffs to zero for particular technology products to remain competitive globally, the council said in a statement, explaining why tariffs are already not charged on about 70 percent of Taiwanese exports.
US-China trade tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic have awakened companies to the need for risk diversification and the danger of overdependence on a single market, the council said.
As a result, companies are restructuring their supply chains and speeding up digital transformation, it said.
Global supply realignment and the ability to develop a digital economy might become more important and relevant to supporting the economy than tariff reductions, the council said.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
AMAZING ABUNDANCE: Elon Musk has announced plans for a new facility in Texas which would manufacture chips for Tesla and SpaceX to use in robotics and AI Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and space data centers — would be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). Musk, the chief executive officer of the two companies, said he would start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that would have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind. The project would call for one day supporting 1 terawatt (TW) of computing power per year, the amount Musk expects the companies to
RSS