The government should seize the “crucial window of opportunities” in the coming months for trade negotiations with the US before the Bush administration leaves in January, an American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (AmCham) official said yesterday.
“Now is really the last chance [before the next US president takes a half year to build up his administration] for significant breakthroughs,” the chamber’s newly appointed president Andrea Wu (吳王小珍), who served as AmCham chairwoman in 2004, told a media briefing yesterday.
Commenting on AmCham’s annual Doorknock visit to Washington in June and follow-up courtesy calls on Cabinet members in Taipei, Wu said, “in general, the atmosphere [in Washington and Taipei] is very positive, compared to the past few years.”
She urged both governments to speed up their trade talks including negotiations on the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, the Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIA) and the Government Procurement Agreement to boost bilateral economic relations.
The BIA could be a stepping stone for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), AmCham said. But Wu said Taiwan should not go all out to get a FTA because it is currently not feasible.
“The FTA should be put on the back burner,” Wu said.
Don Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the chamber’s Topics magazine, agreed, saying: “the US is not in a good mood for a FTA” since Americans blame free trade for the loss of domestic job opportunities and the economic slowdown during a “sensitive” election season.
In addition, chamber sources have said it may take some time before the US Congress restores its fast-track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which expired last year, Shapiro said.
Meanwhile, Wu said that despite the global economic slowdown, a US solar-energy firm has expressed interest in investing in either Taiwan or Malaysia.
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