A delegation led by US Deputy Assistant Trade Representative for China and Taiwan Affairs Eric Altbach held working-level meetings with their Taiwanese counterparts in Taipei on Wednesday and Thursday, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Despite the continued suspension of dialogue under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), talks at a working level have been held regularly for both sides to exchange views on bilateral and regional issues, and cooperation under the APEC framework, Ministry of Economic Affairs Vice Minister Francis Liang (梁國新) said.
“We still hope that ministerial-level talks under the TIFA can resume as soon as possible, but that all depends on there being a mutual decision,” said Liang, who had just returned from San Francisco where he attended meetings to discuss advancing a new tariff-reduction initiative to expand coverage of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), known as ITA II.
The ITA II initiative, which the US hopes will be included in the APEC ministerial statement at this year’s summit in Hawaii next month, was among a wide range of issues discussed during two days of meetings, Liang said.
“As a major exporter of IT [Information Technology] products, of course Taiwan supports further trade liberalization in the sector,” he said.
Liang said the ministry explained to the US delegation why the government has yet to adopt a maximum residue level for ractopamine, a lean meat enhancing chemical prohibited in Taiwan, and that it promised to continue to educate the public about its health risks.
The government began testing US beef for ractopamine in January, which made the US push back the scheduled resumption of the TIFA negotiations, which had been suspended since 2007 in response to Taiwan banning imports of US beef over fears of mad cow disease.
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesperson Christopher Kavanagh yesterday said the US delegation “again raised US concerns about Taiwan’s continuing failure to act on the basis of science with regard to its regulations affecting trade in beef and pork” at the meetings.
The US delegation was composed of officials from the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture and AIT Washington, the AIT said in a press release.
“During the visit, the two sides held constructive and wide-ranging discussions on a wide range of bilateral trade and economic issues of interest to both sides, including agricultural issues, IPR [intellectual property rights] enforcement, investment, services, pharmaceutical products and medical devices, standards, government procurement and other issues,” the AIT said.
It said the two sides also discussed multilateral economic issues, including how to enhance US-Taiwan cooperation to ensure a robust outcome at the upcoming APEC forum.
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