Two amendments are said to be contrary to Taiwan’s WTO obligations. AmCham Taipei’s Retail Committee has raised questions as to whether two amendments to Article 23 of the School Health Act (SHA), dealing with the provision of lunches to public school students, contravene Taiwan’s obligations to international trade agreements to which it is a party….
With allowance for further updating, many of these items are likely to appear on the TIFA agenda. Each spring the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issues a voluminous document called the National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, which assesses the openness of U.S. trading partners to American products and services. In…
Suggestions for preventing overuse in livestock. The overuse of antibiotics in both humans and livestock is a public-health concern in countries around the world, given the potential for increased resistance to the drugs, reducing their effectiveness over time. AmCham Taipei’s Public Health Committee has commended efforts by Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture (COA) in recent years…
As Taiwan makes plans to pursue membership in the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade grouping, government officials are mindful that the 2014 student-led Sunflower Movement – whose impact has continued to keep the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) in abeyance – has changed public expectations toward the way trade agreements should be handled. Much of…
Helping consumers identify products that truly promote environmental sustainability. Each year during the dry season that typically runs from late June through October, countries throughout this region are affected by an air-pollution crisis that has come to be known as the Southeast Asian haze. Intense forest fires, caused by illegal slash-and-burn farming practices and annually…
At issue, the regulation of capsules and the basing of penalties on capital strength. AmCham Taipei’s Retail Committee in February prepared two position papers containing recommendations to the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) regarding recent issues of concern to its member companies. The first involves the current regulation requiring that all imported foods (including…
A long-stalled cooperative educational program may have a new lease on life. For years, AmCham Taipei has emphasized the potential value for Taiwan of allowing – in fact, encouraging – prestigious foreign universities and other educational institutions to set up degree and/or non-degree programs in this country as they have done elsewhere across the region…
The U.S. and Taiwan have broad common ground for cooperation and collaboration. A one-day U.S.-Taiwan “Digital Economy Forum” held in Taipei in early December provided delegations from the two governments with an opportunity to exchange views on approaches to promoting and regulating the Internet economy, as well as on identifying potential areas of bilateral cooperation….
The restructuring program has been given two more years for completion by the new legislature. The eighth Legislative Yuan ended its four-year term in December without completing action on the entire government restructuring program it set out to undertake with passage of an umbrella law in 2010. The program, intended to streamline the executive branch…
The government is working on introducing a Regulatory Impact Analysis manual. In AmCham Taipei’s experience, many of the regulatory problems that business operations face in Taiwan – including a large number of the issues that find their way into the Chamber’s annual Taiwan White Paper – could have been avoided through more rigorous analysis by…
