MAC offers to mediate on exports to China

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 20, 2006. It reports that the Mainland Affairs Council recently expressed its willingness to coordinate efforts by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture, in order to facilitate more exports of local agricultural products to China.

Officially, the government-commissioned semi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council is in charge of negotiating the export of farming produce to China. However, the organization was recently criticized for lacking adequate knowledge of local agricultural products and for failing to serve the interest of local farmers.

Furthermore, according to some lawmakers, most of the "Taiwanese agricultural products" found in China are not authentic. The government is urged to authorize the Taiwan Provincial Farmers' Association, instead of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, to issue certificates of origin for exported farming produce. These certificates should certify the authenticity of Taiwan's agricultural products.

In response to such criticism, the Mainland Affairs Council expressed its willingness to coordinate efforts by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council and the Taiwan Provincial Farmers' Association, in order to resolve the problems and to push for more agricultural exports to China.

In related news, according to the Council of Agriculture, the government is currently selecting a "Taiwan Fruit" label for authentication purposes. Once the selection process is completed, the government will assist the Taiwan Provincial Farmers' Association in registering the certifying label in China, in order to protect the interests of Taiwanese farmers and to prevent counterfeit.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit was recently filed in China against Chinese companies that registered their products with names of places in Taiwan, such as "Alishan Tea", "Chihshang Rice" and "Gukeng Coffee". So far, non-Taiwanese companies in China have registered 13 local trademarks that include the names of geographical locations in Taiwan.

According to the Intellectual Property Office in Taiwan, trademark registration adopts the principle of territoriality, which means that the intellectual property rights are only effective in the territory of acquisition and has no extraterritorial effect. Therefore, the best approach to solving the aforementioned trademark problem would be for Taiwan and China to conduct negotiations on intellectual property rights protection in order to put an end to the problem of counterfeit goods.