Following a briefing by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) at today's Cabinet meeting on the ROC's participation in the recently-concluded 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting, Premier Jiang Yi-huah insisted that relevant ministries must go all-out to create more economic development opportunities.
To that end, the government should use a multi-pronged strategy, simultaneously pushing for participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as well as bilateral free trade agreements, continuing to liberalize and facilitate trade, and strengthening substantive cooperation with other APEC member states, the premier said.
Economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region is accelerating, the premier noted. Japan joined TPP negotiations this July, and on October 8 the leaders of countries of the 12 nations working on this partnership released a joint statement saying they have made substantive progress and plan to complete an agreement by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the RCEP, which is centered on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has already completed a second round of discussions and aims to complete an accord in 2015. Hong Kong may also join the RCEP in the future if it completes negotiations for an FTA with ASEAN.
"Judging from these trends, East Asian economic integration is spreading like wildfire. If Taiwan doesn't get on the train, its economic development outlook will be very worrisome," Jiang warned.
Highlighting the importance of the World Trade Organization's Ninth Ministerial Conference (MC9) this coming December, the premier said, "MC9 is less than seven weeks away. If concrete results can be achieved at this meeting, it could restore confidence in multilateral trade organizations, which would be very significant for our country." He requested that the ROC's overseas missions and negotiators continue to collect reports on relevant progress worldwide in order to assist the MOEA and other agencies in deliberating their responses.