Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) Taiwan will seek to play a more active role in the World Trade Organization (WTO) this year, Taiwan's WTO representative was quoted as saying in an interview.
Lin Yi-fu spoke about a wide range of topics, including the long-stalled Doha round of trade talks, Taiwan's plans ahead of the 10th anniversary of its WTO accession in 2012 and Taiwan's relations with China, in an interview with the WTO Center under the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), a Taipei-based think tank.
The interview published Friday on the institute's website quoted Lin as saying that he believed the Doha round of negotiations will be completed this year.
Taiwan acceded to the WTO on Jan. 1, 2002 under the name Permanent Mission of the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen. The WTO, which currently has 153 members, generally refers to Taiwan as Chinese Taipei.
In the interview, Lin said Taiwan intended to actively participate in multilateral trade negotiations and various committees under the WTO, adding that Taiwan's delegation will seek to chair committees to boost its active participation this year.
In 2010, Lin said, delegation counselor Fang Rui-song served as chairperson of the Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, a subsidiary body of the Council for Trade in Goods.
Taiwan will also seek to play more of a leading role in several negotiating groups it has joined, such as the Recently Acceded Members (RAMs) - countries that negotiated and joined the WTO after 1995 which seeks lesser commitments in the negotiations, and Friends of A-D Negotiations (FANs) , a coalition of countries lobbying for agriculture to be treated as diverse and special, because of non-trade concerns, Lin was quoted as saying.
He also said Taiwan should try to solve trade disputes through the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism more often.
A majority of the WTO members as well as WTO Secretary-General Pascal Lamy welcomed the historic free trade pact, formally known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, signed between Taiwan and China last June, Lin said.
Member economies also paid attention to items on the agreement's "early harvest" list, the timetable of further opening of products, and whether and when the notification will be submitted to the WTO, Lin was quoted as saying.
The Doha round of negotiations, which broke down in 2008, is expected to pick up pace again after leaders expressed strong "political will" to resume and complete the talks in the G-20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forums, according to Lin.
Lin said he was optimistic about the progress of the talks and believed the negotiations will be completed this year. If not, he said, the earliest date for the talks to be completed will possibly be 2013 because the United States will hold its presidential election in 2012. (By Chris Wang) enditem/cs