The first agreement under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade officially came into effect yesterday, marking a “significant milestone” in bilateral trade relations, the Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday.
The agreement between Taiwan and the US covers commitments to customs administration and trade facilitation, regulatory practices, rules for running domestic service industries, anti-corruption, and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Both sides will continue to discuss implementation details and share any concerns, the office said in a statement.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
This includes the establishment of committees on issues such as trade facilitation and good regulatory practices, as well as a liaison mechanism for small and medium-sized enterprises to ensure communication and coordination.
The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) also issued a statement on Monday confirming that the initial agreement had come into force.
“We thank our Taiwan partners for helping us reach this important milestone. The entry into force of the first agreement under our 21st Century Trade Initiative represents an important step forward in strengthening the US-Taiwan economic and trade relationship,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) said in the statement.
The USTR previously submitted a certification to the US Congress stating that Taiwan had taken the measures necessary to comply with its obligations under the agreement, the statement said.
Both sides had notified each other that all procedures required for the agreement to enter into force had been completed, it said.
The US and Taiwan have been making progress on a second agreement under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade, it said.
That agreement would address areas including labor, the environment and agriculture, and negotiations are ongoing, it said.
Taiwan’s trade office said the agreement had received unanimous support from Taiwan and the US Congress.
The two political parties in the US reviewed and approved it without objection in July, giving the agreement the status of an administrative agreement in the US Congress. That status made the legal basis for economic and trade exchanges between Taiwan and the US more solid, the trade office said.
To ensure that both nations can implement the agreement, the US Congress also approved the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade First Agreement Implementation Act in July last year following the passage of the first agreement, it said.
Taiwan and the US launched the Initiative on 21st Century Trade on June 1, 2022.
The first agreement under the initiative is an important “building block” toward a future free-trade agreement, the Office of Trade Negotiations said in May last year, calling it the “most comprehensive” deal agreed between the two trading partners since 1979.
Speaking to the media yesterday before attending a forum with business leaders, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) described it as a “significant day” for Taiwan-US relations.
He said it reflects both sides’ commitment to strengthening cooperation while deepening a broad range of ties.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS