Taipei pushes for regional cooperation among APEC members

This article was written by Kristy Hsu and published by the Taiwan Journal on November 11, 2005. It reports that this year's APEC Informal Economic Leaders' Meeting will be held in Busan, South Korea. One of the important issues that need to be dealt with by APEC member economies is to protect public health against infectious diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian flu, tuberculosis and malaria.

Taiwan became a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 1991. Since then, Taipei has pushed for regional cooperation on disease control and the establishment of a surveillance network and early warning system.

Representing a market of 2.5 billion people and 60 percent of global GDP, APEC makes up 77 percent of Taiwan's total foreign trade. Therefore, Taiwan regards the APEC forum as its most important platform to integrate, economically and socially, into the Asia-Pacific community.

In recent years, Taiwan has initiated programs to support APEC's three pillars - trade and investment liberalization, business facilitation, and economic and technical cooperation. Taiwan has also provided capacity-building schemes to respond to the common concerns of APEC member economies, including human security issues, the widening digital divide and the unequal opportunities available to women and youth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Finally, in some APEC economies, where the promotion of entrepreneurship is needed to stimulate the economy, Taiwan's experience in developing small and medium-sized enterprises has helped promote economic vitality and vibrant new social dynamics.

This article provides excellent details on Taiwan's contributions to APEC since 1991. It lists all the important APEC events hosted by Taiwan, as well as the concrete steps Taiwan has taken to support APEC's three pillars.

Kristy Hsu is Associate Research Fellow at the Chung Hua Institution for Economic Research.