Australia, Peru and Vietnam have expressed interest in joining a budding Asia-Pacific tariff-busting plan that received a boost yesterday with the participation of the US, officials said.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab announced the launching of negotiations for the US to join a free trade agreement now confined to Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei.
The “Comprehensive Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership” agreement, the first trade pact involving a group of Pacific Rim countries, has a broad objective of tearing down trade barriers among participants within a decade.
The first round of negotiations for participation of the US, which has already joined discussions to free up investment and financial services among the five, will be held early next year in Singapore.
“While the United States is the first additional country to seek to join the four original members of the [agreement], we are confident that other countries in the region will ultimately embrace the benefits of participation,” Schwab told a news conference, with ministers from the four countries beside her.
“This high-standard regional agreement will enhance the competitiveness of the countries that are part of it and help promote and facilitate trade and investment among them, increasing their economic growth and development,” she said.
She did not name the countries that had shown interest in joining but officials said they were Australia, Peru and Vietnam.
“I think Australia has shown considerable interest — Peru as well — and there could be one or two other countries,” Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo (楊榮文) said.
“I know Vietnam is studying it very closely ... I am hopeful other countries will also come around,” he said.
The US decision to join the agreement will give impetus to a long-term initiative within the 21-member APEC forum to forge a free-trade agreement of the Asia-Pacific, officials said.
Aside from the US, Australia, Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei, Vietnam and Peru, APEC consists of China, Russia, Japan, Canada and other key economies.
Economies in the APEC group, which has a loose objective of achieving free trade and investment in the Pacific Rim by 2020, account for nearly half of world trade.
Yeo indicated that some APEC members could even join the trans-Pacific agreement before the APEC summit in Peru in November.
Under the agreement, tariffs on all trade products are eliminated within 12 years, with tariffs on 90 percent of trade in goods among the parties eliminated immediately.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
RSS