China News Agency

Taiwan to seek investment pacts before FTAs: minister

7 June 2010

Taipei, June 7 (CNA) Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said Monday that Taiwan will adopt a "building blocks" approach to promote free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries, beginning with investment guarantee pacts.

The idea of signing an investment guarantee agreement between Taiwan and Japan as a pragmatic option preceding an eventual FTA has been favorably received in Japan, Shih told a group of local business and industrial leaders.

He said Taiwan and the United States have exchanged technical views seven times on the feasibility of signing an investment guarantee pact.

The U.S. has some legal issues to tackle before it could possibly sign an investment guarantee pact with Taiwan, Shih said during the joint supervisory board meeting of the Taipei-based Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce.

Taiwan has signed FTAs with five Latin American allies, but the government wants FTAs with more key economic players, including the U.S., Japan, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and the ASEAN members, Shih said.

"Making Taiwan part of global business integration is one of the government’s top missions," he said.

"We follow a ’building blocks’ concept in this effort. Since an FTA is unlikely to be signed with a major economy in one stroke, we seek to achieve the goal piece by piece," he explained.

(By Lin Ye-fong and Deborah Kuo) enditem/bc