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.