Pork clouds 'TPP membership'
Two Taiwanese cabinet ministers have laid bare the predicament concerning the thorny pork-import issue Taiwan faces in joining a regional trade agreement spearheaded by the United States.
Economics Minister John Deng said Taiwan "must make the decision as soon as possible" on whether to relax the regulations to allow the import of US pork products containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine if the island wants to join the negotiating table for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The minister admitted to lawmakers on Tuesday that the US has been demanding that Taiwan lift its ban on ractopamine-containing pork in order to support its bid to join the TPP.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji, on the other hand, argued that Taiwan should keep its ban on ractopamine-containing pork products while allowing the import of beef products containing the same chemical because people in Taiwan consume six times as much pork as beef on average.
In addition to the heavy presence of pork in the Taiwanese diet, the import of pork products has a larger impact on the local agricultural industry than beef, which consists of a much higher proportion of pig farmers than cattle farmers.
Legislator Lee Guei-min cited a projection by the Ministry of Economic Affairs that showed local farmers and related businesses stood to lose US$2 billion (Bt70 billion) in output value and around 16,000 jobs if Taiwan joined the TPP, billed as the world’s biggest trade deal and seen by many in Taiwan as a hedge to its economic reliance on mainland China.
Chen, who is currently on loan from National Taiwan University, said he would argue against allowing ractopamine-containing pork "even more fiercely" when he ends his tenure as agriculture minister and returns to his job as the dean of NTU’s College of Bioresources and Agriculture.
Both the economics minister and the agriculture minister, however, agreed that Taiwan does not need to make the tough decision now. Deng pointed out that the TPP agreement still needs to be approved by lawmakers in the 12 countries participating in the negotiations and that Taiwan will only make an application after it is formally sealed.
There is still a certain amount of time left before Taiwan has to make the final decision. Chen also stressed that Taiwan should leave controversial issues such as pork imports until the last stage of negotiations.
The current administration will most probably not be burdened with the "final decisions" as parliaments of the 12 negotiating nations are still months away from finishing deliberations on the TPP terms. A formal agreement is not expected to be in place until next spring.
