December 6, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 1,1423

TAIPEI, Dec 5: China has agreed for the first time to hold landmark consultations with Taiwan on steel trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO), an official said on Thursday.

The economic ministry said Beijing agreed to the discussions with Taipei about China’s levying of emergency safeguards on some steel imports in response to Taipei’s demand for consultations.

“Details of the consultations are being arranged by Taiwan’s WTO officials in Geneva. The time for the consultations have yet to be fixed,” economic ministry spokesman Berton Chiu told AFP.

But vice economic minister Yin Chi-ming was cited by the Economic Daily News as saying the Board of Foreign Trade would send a delegation to Geneva next week on the landmark consultations.

In September, China’s chief WTO negotiator Long Yongtu told a Taiwanese newspaper Beijing would not conduct business talks with Taiwan under the WTO framework unless the “one China” issue was settled.

China joined the WTO on December 11 last year and its arch rival Taiwan quickly followed on January 1 this year.

In a notice to Taiwan’s WTO mission in Geneva, China chose to call it an economic and cultural office, as did the Hong Kong and Macau office in WTO, rather than Taiwan’s official title at the organization.

But economic minister Lin Yi-fu maintains its official representation at the WTO is not to be downgraded by mainland China unilaterally.

Taipei has rejected Beijing’s unification offer of “one country, two systems,” a mechanism it uses to rule both Hong Kong and Macau.

China’s foreign trade ministry announced last month that safeguard tariff measures would be invoked under WTO rules and be applied to five categories of steel products.

Hot and cold rolled steel, organic coated sheets, non-grain oriented electrical sheets and cold-rolled stainless sheet steel were among the targeted products.

China’s trading partners were given the opportunity for consultations on the safeguard measures from November 1, he said.

Japanese steel makers appeared to be the most affected by the measures as Japan is China’s biggest source of steel imports, providing 20 per cent of the total. Japan exported some 4.6 million tons of steel to China last year.

Taiwan exported 3.9 million tons of steel products to China, according to figures compiled by the Taiwan Steel and Iron Industries Association.—AFP