The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) recognized Taiwan’s efforts to enhance trade secret protections, while citing online piracy as an ongoing concern, in an annual report released on Wednesday.
This year’s “Special 301” report, which monitors intellectual property (IP) protection and enforcement among US trading partners, was the second to be published under US President Joe Biden’s administration by US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪).
In the report, the USTR identified Taiwan, along with the EU and Chile, as partners that have recently strengthened or are working to strengthen their trade secret regimes.
Photo: Ritchie Bo. Tongo, EPA-EFE
While the report did not cite any specific examples, the legislature has amended a range of intellectual property laws as part of its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
The US and Taiwan also met under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement framework in June last year to discuss “developments related to the enforcement of trade secrets protections, copyright legislation and digital piracy,” the report said.
However, the report identified Taiwan as one of 16 markets with “notable” levels of streaming content piracy through illicit streaming devices and illicit Internet protocol television service apps.
In addition to Taiwan, the other markets included China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Canada and Brazil.
China was also named as a manufacturing hub for piracy devices.
The USTR maintained China’s place on a “priority watch list” — along with Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia, Russia and Venezuela — of countries with major deficiencies in their IP protections.
Although China passed a number of legal reforms last year to strengthen such protections, it has yet to address issues such as weak enforcement channels, and a lack of transparency and judicial independence, the report said.
The USTR also urged China to provide “a level playing field” in the area of IP protections, to refrain from requiring or pressuring technology transfers to Chinese companies, and to open to foreign investment and “embrace open and market-oriented policies.”
Washington will continue to monitor Beijing’s progress in implementing its commitments under the “phase one” trade agreement that the two countries signed in January 2020, the report said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to