Taipei, June 1, 2007 (CENS)--The newly established Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) and the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) are jointly making preparations for the Taiwan-U.S. Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) meeting to be held in July of this year.

Teng Chen-chung, chief negotiator of OTN, will lead a delegation to the U.S. in July to discuss at the meeting the feasibility of signing Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Bilateral Investment Agreement (BIA) with the U.S.

To pave the way for FTA, Huang Chih-peng, director general of BOFT, is now leading a buying mission to the U.S. The delegation pays visits to such large cities in the U.S. as Los Angeles, Huston, New York, and Washington D.C. Among members of the delegation are some government-linked companies, namely Taiwan Power Co., Chinese Petroleum Corp., China steel Corp., and Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC).

The delegation is expected to spend a total of US$11.34 billion to buy America. Of the delegation members, Taipower is to spend US$100 million to purchase fuels for its power plants and US$1.6 million for related machinery; CPC Corporation Taiwan is to buy US$1.085 billion worth of oil products and related facilities; and AIDC is reportedly to spend millions of dollars to purchase precision plane parts.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs hoped that the buying mission could be helpful to the upcoming meeting on the FTA and BIA issues.

(by Judy Li)