Agricultural exports to the US in the first nine months of this year rose 17.2 percent annually following an easing of trade barriers between Taiwan and the US, government data show.
Frozen vegetables, packaged fruits, flour, sugar and tea comprised more than half of all agricultural exports to the US.
The US has become the second-biggest destination for Taiwanese agricultural products after China, accounting for 16.1 percent of total agricultural export value, Council of Agriculture data showed.
Photo: CNA
From January to September, agricultural exports to the US totaled 204,860 tonnes, compared with 174,733 tonnes in the same period last year, the data show.
Their value increased 38 percent to US$673 million from US$487 million last year.
The total export value has soared 46 percent compared with the first nine months of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The figures come amid a slight reduction in the agricultural sector’s reliance on China, with 20.1 percent of total exports going there in the first nine months, compared with 20.8 percent a year earlier, the council’s data show.
Woo Rhung-jieh (吳榮杰), an honorary professor in National Taiwan University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, attributed the shift to an easing of trade barriers between Taiwan and the US.
Taiwan on Jan. 1 legalized the importation of US pork containing traces of the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine in the hopes of enabling greater economic cooperation with Washington.
Taiwan’s show of sincerity would help it in bilateral trade negotiations and in its bid to enter regional trade groups, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Woo said.
However, whether the public is willing to purchase US pork is a separate issue, he added, referring to a backlash against the decision that is to culminate in a referendum next month.
Most important is for Taiwan to abide by international standards on ractopamine and express its willingness to play by international trade rules, he said.
If Taiwan lowers barriers to US goods, Washington would reciprocate in kind, he added.
US pork imports over the first nine months totaled 2,034 tonnes, only about one-third of the 9,699 tonnes imported during the same period last year, the data show.
This has reduced the share of US pork imports to 5 percent of all pork imports, compared with 22 percent last year, the data show.
Meanwhile, domestically produced pork has increased its share of the market to 93 percent last year from 90 percent in 2019.
The percentage is expected to rise even further this year, Animal Husbandry Department Deputy Director Chiang Wen-chuan (江文全) said.
The trend follows those in Japan and South Korea, whose domestic pork industries also experienced growth after they allowed the importation of US pork containing ractopamine, he said.
This is in part thanks to stricter labeling rules, which have led many processed food producers and restaurants to use domestic rather than imported pork, he added.
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