Response by the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu to EU regarding G/TBT/N/TPKM/346-348

22 March 2019 Chinese Taipei thanks the EU for providing its comments on 14 March regarding the notifications G/TBT/N/TPKM/346-348. Our response is as follows.

First, if any European Control Body (CB) would like to be accredited, it has to apply to the accreditation body (AB) that is approved by our Agriculture and Food Agency, and all the details of application procedure will also be set up by the AB. For now, we have one candidate named Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF) that is willing to apply for the approval. After the approval is granted to TAF, 30 May 2019 the earliest, European CBs could contact directly TAF to obtain accreditation. Since TAF is a member of IAF, it will follow ISO/IEC 17011 and Taiwan’s regulations to accredit organic CBs.

Second, “country” is required to be labelled; therefore, for Member States of the EU, their country names still need to be labelled. It’s the same as what is required right now.

According to Articles 17 and 37 of the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act, we will stop the unilateral organic equivalence recognition after the grace period (until 30th May 2020). Chinese Taipei considers the EU as an important trade partner of organic products, and had gave the responding materials of the desk review conducted by the EU to the Diretorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development on 26th June 2018. If the EU can make the progress of the recognition of Taiwan’s organic equivalence, and achieve the bilateral arrangement before the deadline, we may try to find the legal basis for extending the recognition to all 28 EU Member States.