Taiwan may join new Asia-Pacific trade deal
21/11/2017
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the US from TPP in January, sparking serious concern that the deal would collapse.
During the recent summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in Vietnam, 11 Asia Pacific nations announced they would continue to pursue a regional free-trade deal, renaming this initiative CPTPP.
At a news conference following a meeting of the country’s cabinet, the Premier of Taiwan, William Lai, said the government would seek to join CPTPP, the Taipei Times reports. Taiwan was not one of the signatories of TPP.
Although it will be based on the framework of TPP, a number of regulations have not been included in CPTPP. These include a mechanism for settling disputes between investors and local governments, an intellectual property rights protection mechanism, and government procurement regulations.
Taiwan’s deputy minister of economic affairs, Kung Ming-hsin, was quoted as saying that, although the complete framework of CPTPP has not yet been outlined, it appears to be more agreeable to Taiwan than TPP.
Taiwan being part of this new deal would be good news for the country's textile and apparel manufacturers. Under TPP, they were facing the prospect of losing business to competitors in Vietnam, which was part of the free-trade agreement and so would have benefited from significant tariff reductions when trading with other signatories.
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