Taiwan has taken a “bold” and “necessary” step by submitting an application to join one of the world’s biggest free-trade groups, the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), according to a scholar at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER).
In an interview with CNA, Roy Lee (??), deputy executive director of CIER’s Taiwan WTO and RTA Center, said the move to seek CPTPP membership is critical to Taiwan, adding that if the country failed to apply at this time, the likelihood of it ever joining the bloc would recede into the distance.
Taiwan filed an application to join the CPTPP Wednesday under the name “the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu,” through its representative in New Zealand who sent the accession form to New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
New Zealand acts as a depositary for the Pacific Rim trade pact, and will be responsible for passing the application to all member states.
Taiwan’s application to join the trade agreement came after the United Kingdom submitted its own application in February and just days after China did the same on Sept. 16.
“Finally, Taiwan has taken a bold and necessary step,” Lee said “China has filed its own application to join the trade bloc, and if China is granted CPTPP membership before Taiwan, the chance for Taiwan to join would become slim and the country would face more hurdles.”
“The timing has been never better for Taiwan,” he said.
The CPTPP free trade deal was signed in March 2018 by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, and went into effect at the end of that year, following ratification by more than half of the 11 signatories.
Of the 11 countries, Brunei, Chile and Malaysia had not ratified the agreement as of the end of July, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
While he praised Taiwan for the its bold move, Lee said the country will have to address two thorny issues — a decade-long ban on Japanese food imports from areas affected by the 2011 nuclear disaster as well as its restrictions on agriculture goods purchases from overseas.
Lee said the ban on Japanese food imports from areas affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster on March 11, 2011, is the most important issue faced by Taiwan.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the predecessor of the CPTPP before the withdrawal of the United State in 2017 under the Donald Trump administration. The CPTPP is now led by Japan.
However, Japan will hold parliamentary elections to select a new prime minister later this year, which makes the second half of this year a difficult time for Taiwan to negotiate with Tokyo on the food import ban, Lee said.
The scholar said Taiwan should try to communicate with the Japanese government and express its sincerity and willingness to solve the problem before entering talks with Japan.
As for Taiwan’s restrictions on the import of agricultural goods, Lee said with many CPTPP members being agricultural exporters, Taiwan needs to address examination and quarantine issues for agricultural imports by coming up with acceptable scientific or procedural measures.
Kung Ming-hsin (???), chief of Taiwan’s National Development Council (NDC), said he expects participation in the CPTPP to generate economic benefits for the country as a whole, although some industries such as the agricultural and auto parts sectors could feel the pinch from rising competition resulting from lower tariffs.
Kung said without CPTPP membership, many industries in Taiwan will face tariff hurdles, which would lower gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 0.5-0.6 percent if more countries, including the U.K., South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, join the bloc.
Joining the CPTPP could boost Taiwan’s GDP growth by more than 2 percent, he predicted.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel