Taiwan to suggest APEC help member countries

Taiwan to suggest APEC help member countries

TAIPEI (AFP): Taiwan is to ask the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to help member countries head off the effects of market opening steps on their economies, Taiwan's economics minister said yesterday.

Chiang Pin-kung -- who is leading a 16-member delegation to the APEC ministerial meeting to be held in Indonesia on Wednesday -- told reporters that he would request the assistance particularly in the agricultural sector.

"We will propose that each APEC country work out its liberalization schedule according to the level of its development," he said.

He said Taiwan would also suggest that the 17 APEC members helped each other cushion the impact of the opening of their internal markets, adding that there was a need for mutual aid so that industries would not suffer seriously.

Another of Taiwan's major tasks at the meeting would be to solicit support from other APEC members for Taipei's bid to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Chiang noted.

Almost all members of the Taiwanese delegation have taken part in bilateral GATT talks with other countries. They include Vice Economics Minister Sheu Ke-sheng, Board of Foreign Trade Director Huang Yen-chao and Deputy Director Lin Yi-fu.

The delegates will also hold talks with counterparts from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States between APEC meetings, before returning home on Friday.

Taiwan wants to join GATT before it is reorganized as the World Trade Organization next year, but economics officials here have admitted that it would be difficult to achieve this goal as it has completed bilateral GATT talks with only two countries.