Taiwan and 13 other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have announced the launch of negotiations on a new Environmental Goods Agreement.
The 14 members made the announcement at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday. The global trade in environmental goods is worth almost US$1 trillion. The proposed agreement aims to cut tariffs on 54 environmental goods to under 5% by the end of 2015.
The 54 environmental goods cover machinery, electronics, and optical products. They make up around 8-9% of Taiwan’s total exports.
A researcher with the WTO & RTA Center at the Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research in Taipei, Yeh Chang-chen, said on Wednesday that the multilateral negotiations are very likely to succeed.
"I think if the list [of goods] is not too ambitious and if tariffs on the goods [that the members can agree on] are cut first, then I think it’s possible," said Yeh. "I think during the process, we should try to include the environmental goods that we export a lot and have competitive edge in. This will be very beneficial to us," he said.