Taiwan’s Economy and a U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement

The creation of numerous free trade agreements (FTAs) around the world has triggered a chain reaction, as countries fearing exclusion move forward to establish their own regional FTAs. Signed in late 2006, Taiwan’s first FTA took effect in the beginning of 2007. Taiwan, the world’s sixteenth-largest economy and the United States’s ninth-largest trading partner, is actively seeking to negotiate further FTAs with several countries including the United States.

On February 6, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies (CNAPS) hosted a discussion on Taiwan’s economy with a keynote address by Dr. Shih Yen-Shiang, political deputy minister of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. Following his speech, leading experts examined important questions about how political competition in Taipei, Washington, and Beijing affects Taiwan’s economic performance and its economic relationships with other countries.

CNAPS Director Richard Bush provided introductory remarks and moderated the first panel on the state of Taiwan’s economy. Rick Ruzicka, director for Trade and Commercial Programs at the American Institute in Taiwan, moderated a second panel focusing on a U.S.-Taiwan free trade agreement.