Taipei - Taiwan's entry into the World Trade Organisation would hurt the island's battered hog, chicken and feed industries, Taiwan meat industry experts said on Friday.
"An agreement with the United States to drastically lower import tariffs on poultry products will seriously hurt the island's hog and chicken industry," Jack Lee, an industry expert at Taiwan's Hui Shung Agriculture and Food Corp, said.
Taipei and Washington continued talks on Taiwan's bid to join the World Trade Organisation. The sides' negotiators have been working for more than a week in Washington to resolve a number of bilateral trade issues and have made progress on telecommunications.
But farm trade issues have been the most difficult with the United States demanding greater access to Taiwan's market and Taiwan arguing the island's pig and chicken industries would be ruined.
Analysts said Taiwan pork producers were most concerned about whether Taipei would agree to open its markets to imported hog by-products and internal organs such as intestines, kidneys, brain and blood.
"Taiwan has plenty of pork at reasonable prices, but cheap U.S. by-products will devastate our industry," an industry analyst at Taiwan's Great Wall Enterprise Corp said.
Due to culture and dietary preferences, Taiwan consumers often pay top dollars for chicken and hog organs -- parts that are treated as waste by most Americans.
"Taiwan's poultry industry fears that U.S. will dump their 'wastes' at extremely low prices here," the analyst said.
The analyst said low-priced U.S. chicken drumstick is another item that concerns Taiwan meat industry.
"Americans prefers chicken breast meat, so they can export cheap drumsticks to Taiwan," he said.
During the first 10 months of 1997, Taiwan imported 11,498 tonnes of U.S. beef but no U.S. pork, traders said.
Traders said Taiwan is not expected to import any U.S. pork in 1998 due to sufficient local supplies.
U.S. pork producers are anxious for entry into Taiwan's market, where consumers eat more pork per person than anywhere else in the world, U.S. traders said.
Taiwan now charges a 15% tariff on pork imports and 50% on pig internal organs. It levies 40% tariffs on chicken meat and organs, council officials said.
Sources at the council indicated that Taiwan could slash the import tariffs by as much as half their current levels.
Taiwan's huge feed and meat producers, alarmed by reports that Taipei might concede too much to Washington for WTO entry, backed a mass protest on February 11 in which hog farmers pelted the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Taipei with eggs and pig manure.
Since February 4, private Taiwan importers have boycotted U.S. grain to retaliate against Washington's pressure on Taipei.
Taiwan negotiators have denied unsubstantiated newspaper reports that Taipei was prepared to make "major concessions" to the United States on farm import tariffs in WTO talks.
The issue is particularly sensitive as Taiwan's hog industry is just rebuilding from a foot-and-mouth epidemic 11 months ago that forced the slaughter of nearly four million hogs.
Taiwan and the United States have failed to resolve their trade differences in 16 rounds of WTO-related talks.
Taiwan has hammered out agreements with all but three of the 26 WTO members that sought bilateral talks. The holdouts are the United States, the European Union and Switzerland.
U.S. meat industry officials said on Thursday they were optimistic that an agreement will be reached with Taiwan on agricultural trade issues.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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