Chinese Taipei
To help improve the sustainability of the fishery, the total number of large-scale tuna longliners larger than 100GRTs has been reduced from 614 to 418 by 2013. To protect sharks, Chinese Taipei promulgated the “Regulations on the Disposal of the Fins of the Shark Catches of Fishing vessels” and the “Regulations on the Imports of Shark Fins” in 2012.
The fishery industry of Chinese Taipei is highly diversified with a large-scale deep sea commercial fishery as well as a community-based coastal and offshore fishery.
A compulsory fleet size reduction program has been in place in Chinese Taipei since 2005. In 2007, Chinese Taipei completed a three-year reduction program of large-scale tuna longliners larger than 100 GRTs, reducing the total number from 614 to 421.
Over the past century, Chinese Taipei has adopted a Western civil legal system. Despite these developments, its Civil Code retains strong paternal characteristics. A comparative study by Chen suggests that legislation in the People’s Republic of China is better at upholding the principle of gender equality.
The Chinese Taipei fishing industry is highly diversified and comprised principally of two sectors: a large-scale deep sea commercial fishery targeting tuna and squid in international and foreign waters, and a community-based costal and offshore fishery harvesting a wide range of species within the Chinese Taipei EEZ. Deep sea fishing plays a dominant role in Chinese Taipei. The deep sea long-distance fleet, targeting tuna and squid, harvests around 800 000 tons per annum, representing 58% of overall activity measured by landings. The Central and Western Pacific are principal hunting grounds for tuna while squid jigging takes place mainly in the South Western Atlantic, Western and Eastern Pacific Oceans. Some 71 foreign ports serve as principle ports for these activities. To manage issues of overcapacity, flags of convenience (FOC) and IUU fishing by the deep sea tuna fleet, a two year vessel buyback/scrapping program (2005-06) has reduced the active tuna fleet from 614 units to 454. This has been coupled with a prohibition to export tuna vessels built in Chinese Taipei. Also, authorities are working on equipping all deep sea vessels with vessel monitoring systems (VMS).
This chapter describes the impact of climate change on Chinese Taipei fisheries and introduces how Chinese Taipei addresses the challenges. Accelerating sea surface warming in the waters surround Chinese Taipei since the 1980s has not only diminished winter migratory fish stocks year on year, but also caused such changes as displacement of fishing grounds, species regime shifts and increased the vulnerability of the marine ecosystem. The marine ecosystem and fisheries have to face the problem of the expansion of fish stocks from the south and withdrawal of fish stocks from the north. In addition, the numbers of large fish at high trophic levels have decreased under pressures from several decades of fishing activity while small pelagic fish have shown a relative increase. As the numbers of small pelagic fish show much greater inter-annual fluctuations than those species of larger size or longer lifespan, this is likely to weaken the structure of marine food (fish) pyramid even more. Meanwhile, frequent extreme-weather events and climatic variability during the warming process will damage the Chinese Taipei fishery more. Under such circumstances, traditional fishery management measures will not be able to adapt to the problems caused by climate change. External precautionary and adaptation measures need to be introduced to reduce its impact.
This report, prepared by the Secretariat of the OECD was the basis for a peer review examination of Chinese Taipei at the OECD’s Global Forum on Competition on 9 February, 2006. Competition law in Chinese Taipei has been an important element of the program of economic reforms that moved the economy from centrally directed emphasis on manufacturing and exports to a market-driven emphasis on services and high technology. The competition law follows mainstream practice about restrictive agreements, monopolies and anticompetitive mergers, with a particularly clear statutory basis for concentrating enforcement attention on horizontal collusion. The rules about market deception and unfair practices connect the competition law to consumer interests. There is a risk, though, that rules based on a cultural tradition of fairness might lead to interventions to correct differences in bargaining power, which could dampen competition rather than promote it. The competition enforcement agency, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), is now a stable, experienced administrative agency. It followed an appropriate sequence in introducing competition policy, emphasising transparency and guidance to encourage compliance before undertaking stronger enforcement measures. General reforms are in process that would clarify the independence of the FTC. To improve enforcement against hard-core cartels, a leniency programme should be adopted, and the special treatment for agreements among small businesses should be limited. Some other aspects of the enforcement tool-kit should be revised, such as the cap on fines and the use of market share as a merger notification test. The most visible regulatory reforms to promote competition have been in telecoms, although an independent regulator for that sector is just now being set up. The government retains holdings in privatised firms that could have implications for market competition, so FTC vigilance about the risk of cross-subsidy or other distortion remains warranted.