Taiwan’s top trade negotiator and a senior US trade official on Friday discussed how to proceed with a recently signed trade deal and issues to be addressed in the next stage of talks, the government said.
Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中), who heads the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations, held a virtual meeting with Deputy US Trade Representative (USTR) Sarah Bianchi, exchanging information on the two sides’ preparations to implement the first agreement signed under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade, Deng’s office said in a statement released on Friday.
Taiwan mainly sought to understand what would happen when the US Congress passes the trade agreement signed on June 1, the statement said.
Photo: Taipei Times file
Taipei and Washington need to notify each other when all required domestic procedures are completed, with the trade agreement taking effect the day after both notifications are made.
Deng and Bianchi agreed to implement the first agreement in a timely manner and touched on topics in the next stage of the trade talks, the statement said.
There are seven remaining issues under the trade initiative formally launched in August last year, and they involve labor, environment, agriculture, digital trade, standards, state-owned enterprises, and nonmarket policies and practices, it said.
No date has been set for when the next stage of negotiations would start, but the issues set to be discussed are the environment, labor and agriculture, it added.
The first agreement signed in June covers trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, anti-corruption, domestic regulation of services, and small and medium-sized enterprises, the USTR office said.
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