The Prospects for an EU – Taiwan Free Trade Agreement
Since the 1990s there has been a significant expansion of free trade agreement (FTA) activity globally, this trend being most pronounced in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific. By the mid-1990s only a small handful of FTAs were in operation in the region but by the late 2000s over 80 agreements had been concluded, the vast majority (85 to 90 percent) being bilateral in nature.
Owing to Taiwan’s contested diplomatic status, Taipei has hitherto only managed to conclude agreements with a few official diplomatic partners in Central America, these being of very minor significance in trade terms. However, the advent of FTA negotiations between Taipei and Beijing in 2009 / 2010 could potentially break the diplomatic constraints on Taiwan’s FTA policy, and possibly open the path to talks with the European Union, which itself is looking to establish FTA partnerships with key Asian economic partners.
In this presentation, FTA expert Professor Dent examines the prospects for an EU – Taiwan free trade agreement over forthcoming years. Professor Dent is in East Asia’s International Political Economy, University of Leeds, with abundant and in-depth researches on Asia-Pacific FTA and Regionalsim, and experiences as the penal viewer and director to numerous international training programme and Seminars around the world as well.