Taiwan’s decade-long ban on Japanese food imports from five Japanese prefectures following the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster would be a key topic in bilateral negotiations now that Taiwan has applied to join a Tokyo-led trade bloc, said Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中), who heads the Cabinet’s Office of Trade Negotiations.
The government needs to deal with its ban on imports of agricultural and food products from the five prefectures, Deng said in an interview with the Central News Agency.
Although the Japanese government has said it would not make the issue’s resolution a condition for its support of Taipei’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Deng said the dispute has to be dealt with sooner or later.
“Taiwan will bring the issue to the negotiation table once both sides begin official talks on joining the CPTPP,” he said.
Some of the issues likely to be discussed during bilateral talks on lifting the ban would include specifying what kind of food and agricultural products would be allowed into Taiwan, which government agency would be responsible for inspecting the products imported from Japan and what kind of documents would be needed, he said.
“Whether to lift the ban will be decided based solely on scientific evidence,” he added.
Taiwan applied to join the CPTPP on Sept. 22.
It is in talks with all 11 members of the bloc to seek their support and learn about their pressing issues, Deng said.
Talks with Australia and Singapore are not expected to be too challenging, as Taiwan has no major trade disputes with them, he said, but added that talks with Vietnam are expected to be thorny, as Taipei and Hanoi compete in agricultural exports.
Taiwan’s application to join the CPTPP came less than a week after China also applied for membership, suggesting a rush by Taipei in response to Beijing’s bid.
Asked if he was worried that China would join the CPTPP before Taiwan, as was the case with the WTO, Deng said that during the early 2000s, economies around the world had high expectations of China, which was experiencing a significant economic boom at the time.
“How does the world see China now?” Deng asked.
Accession to the CPTPP requires a unanimous decision by all members, he said, adding that Australia, which is facing economic sanctions from China, has voiced its objection to Beijing’s bid.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS