Taiwan and Japan on Thursday in Tokyo signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on mutual recognition of plant varieties, the Agriculture and Food Agency said in a news release.
Following negotiations that lasted for more than a year, the MOU was signed by Taiwan-Japan Relations Association Chairman Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) and Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Chairman Mitsuo Ohashi on behalf of their respective governments at the 48th annual Taiwan-Japan Economic and Trade Conference, agency Deputy Director Yao Chih-wang (姚志旺) said in a news release.
Given that the international trade of agricultural products is booming due to global trade liberalization, using plant variety rights to protect Taiwan’s high-quality plant varieties has become even more important, he said.
Photo: Lin Tsuei-yi, Taipei Times
Plant variety rights cannot be protected in a country without prior review and approval from local authorities, as they are regulated following the territorial principle, Yao said.
As the review of applications for plant variety rights must be conducted following the plant’s life cycle, it is usually costly and time-consuming and could take applicants more than three years to obtain the rights, he said.
It would require more time and money if applications are made to more than one country, so the government has been establishing agreements on mutual recognition of plant variety rights with other countries, Yao said.
For example, Taiwan signed an agreement on mutual recognition of moth orchid varieties with the EU in 2019, as well as an MOU on mutual recognition and conservation of plant varieties with Vietnam in 2021, he said.
As of last month, 17 high-quality plant varieties have been granted an international plant variety right through such cooperative mechanisms, markedly reducing the application time and fees, Yao said.
There were 3,265 plant variety right applications nationwide as of last month, he said.
Of these, 2,735 were flowers, which made up the largest category of applications at 84 percent, followed by 210 from the vegetable category at 6 percent, 171 fruit tree varieties at 5 percent and 85 crop varieties at 3 percent, Yao said, adding that the remaining 64 applications, or 2 percent, fell under the “other” category.
The ministry would continue to seek more opportunities for international cooperation on the mutual recognition of plant varieties to enhance Taiwan’s competitiveness in agriculture, he said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS