The government last week held two rounds of seminars in Canada as part of its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
The seminars on Wednesday and Friday last week in Calgary and Vancouver respectively were the first such CPTPP promotional events held in Canada outside the capital, Ottawa, Department of International Cooperation and Economic Affairs Director-General Vivian Lien (連玉蘋) said.
Canada is the CPTPP commission chair this year.
Photo: Reuters
The Canadian Global Affairs Institute hosted the Calgary event, titled “Canada-Taiwan Economic Cooperation: Opportunities for Western Canada,” which was co-organized by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, Lien said.
Ken Hardie, chair of the Canada-China Relations Special Committee of the Canadian House of Commons, and Christy Clark, former premier of British Columbia, said that Taiwan was a reliable partner, pointing out its adherence to high trade standards during the Calgary event, a Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada statement said.
The second seminar, “Bridging Economies: Exploring Canadian - Taiwanese Trade Ventures,” was hosted by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Lien said.
She said that Taiwan would continue to pitch to every CPTPP member that its accession would enhance supply chain resilience and benefit global economic security.
Lien has repeatedly said that the government believes this year could be crucial for Taiwan’s bid because Canada is commission chair of the CPTPP.
That offers a “window of opportunity” for Taipei’s potential accession to the trade bloc because of the democratic values shared by Canada and Taiwan, and their robust trade and economic ties, she said.
All decisions by the commission or the accession working group are made by consensus among CPTPP members, as per the bloc’s accession process rules.
Taiwan officially applied to join the CPTPP on Sept. 22, 2021, less than a week after China, but Taipei has made little headway on its bid since then.
The CPTPP, which grew out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the US left in January 2017, is one of the world’s biggest trade blocs, representing a market of 500 million people and accounting for 13.5 percent of global trade.
Its 11 signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
The UK signed the trade agreement on July 16 last year, and is expected to formally join by the end of this year.
Ecuador, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ukraine have also applied to join the trade bloc.
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