Taiwan Might Join WTO Within Hours of China, Moore Says
By Lisa Murray
Darwin, Australia June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan is set to become a member of the World Trade Organization, possibly within hours of China's official entry into the trade body, Director General Mike Moore said.
Last week, the U.S. Congress passed legislation guaranteeing China permanent normal trade relations, paving the way for the world's largest consumer market into the WTO. That followed a similar approval by the European Union.
That decision granting improved U.S. trade access to Beijing was ``one of the great decisions of the decade,'' Moore told reporters in Darwin, where he is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade ministers' talks.
Moore said that Taiwan, known as the ``economy of Chinese Taipei'' at the 21-member APEC talks, will be next to follow into the Geneva-based trade body.
``The council has already determined the order'' of accession for the two economies, Moore said.
``I would expect China to go through and Chinese Taipei to come through shortly after -- does it mean we break for coffee, tea, dinner or overnight? but it would happen around the same time,'' Moore said.
China has a population of 1.2 billion people. Taiwan, with 22 million people, has an economy about one fourth the size of its giant neighbor.
With the two countries trading under the structure of the WTO, it may provide some stability for relations in the region, analysts said. China has said it wants to reunify Taiwan with the mainland and has threatened to take back the island by force.
``It is in the interests of the multilateral trade system that both my country and PRC are members of the WTO,'' Steve Chen, deputy minister of economic affairs told the Bloomberg Forum.
Chen said he hoped that China's entry into the WTO could lead to ``economic reform (and) that there will be freedom and improvement in other areas.'' |
