Taiwan’s exports to nations belonging to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) expanded 23.8 percent in the first nine months of this year, while imports grew 14.9 percent, warranting Taiwan’s bid to join the free-trade bloc, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) showed on Thursday last week.
The data was released one year after Taiwan announced its aim to join the CPTPP, which comprises 11 member states: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The CPTPP’s members account for 13.4 percent of global GDP, at about US$13.5 trillion in total, making it one of the world’s largest free-trade areas, along with the North American Free Trade Agreement, the EU and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the DGBAS said.
Photo courtesy of the Singaporean Ministry of Trade and Industry via CNA
DGBAS Statistics Department head Tsai Yu-tai (蔡鈺泰) said that Taiwan’s increase in trade with CPTPP member states had a lot to do with Taiwan benefitting from the contactless economy created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
That benefit is fading, explaining why exports lost momentum last quarter and might decline further this quarter and early next year, Tsai said.
Taiwan on Sept. 22 last year filed an official request to join the CPTPP and has made becoming a member its top policy priority, updating its fishing, medicine, investment, patent, trademark and intellectual property regulations to align with the trade body’s standards, the National Development Council has said.
CPTPP membership would positively affect local makers of textiles, garments, machinery and machine tools that remain heavily dependent on traditional manufacturing procedures and are sensitive to tariff changes, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) said.
As Taiwan’s textile products are relatively competitive in Asia, joining the CPTPP would boost that advantage, the Taipei-based think tank said.
While pursuing CPTPP membership, the government must not forget to boost relations with individual member economies, it said.
Exports last year to CPTPP markets soared 33 percent annually to US$94.99 billion, better than an average 9.3 percent increase over the previous five years, DGBAS data showed.
Shipments of electronics last year contributed US$41.32 billion, or 43.5 percent, followed by base metals and related products at US$8.31 billion, and information and communications technology products at US$7.8 billion, the DGBAS said.
Imports from CPTPP areas last year totaled US$108.61 billion, up 30 percent year-on-year, it said.
Electronics, mineral products and machinery were the top three import sectors, it said.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS