Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday joined the trade ministers of 20 other APEC member states in a virtual conference and called for disease prevention materials to be exchanged through bilateral agreements.
APEC has 21 members, including Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, New Zealand and the US. Taiwan joined the organization under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
The Virtual APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting was chaired by Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali, APEC said in a news release yesterday.
Photo provided by the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations
Yesterday’s meeting focused on how to maintain free and open trade and investment mechanisms amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said in a news release.
While the 21 members are in eight different time zones, the countries’ ministers still joined the important discussion, it said.
During the meeting, Deng highlighted Taiwan’s outstanding performance in controlling the pandemic, saying that the nation still had a GDP growth rate of 1.6 percent despite the pandemic.
Without locking down cities or suspending classes and business operations, Taiwan did not report large-scale community infections, he said.
Over the past few months, Taiwan has been able to operate normally, and had the capacity to provide other countries with medical supplies, showing that “Taiwan can help,” he added.
Nonetheless, no single country can claim itself a “winner” when is comes to the pandemic, Deng said.
Taiwan is happy to boost cooperation with other countries to tackle future challenges, he said.
Protecting people’s health should be a principle that is prioritized, and after that, governments should manage to maintain the circulation of critical materials, he said.
The trade ministers issued a joint statement after the virtual meeting.
“We acknowledge the importance of a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable trade and investment environment to drive economic recovery at such a challenging time,” the statement on APEC’s Web site read.
“We are committed to ensure that emergency measures designed to tackle COVID-19 are targeted, proportionate, transparent, temporary, do not create unnecessary barriers to trade or disruption to global supply chains, and are consistent with WTO rules,” it said.
The ministers also highlighted the need to establish a digital platform for information exchange and the needs to empower all sectors of the community, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, while reiterating their concern about the pandemic’s impact on vulnerable developing economies.
They also issued a declaration on facilitating the flow of essential goods, which included that emergency trade measures designed to tackle COVID-19 must be consistent with WTO rules and that member economies are expected to abide by the International Health Regulations of 2005.
Additional reporting by Lin Chia-nan
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
RSS