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According to the import/export trade statistics of Ministry of Finance (Taiwan), in 2014 the total export value of Taiwanese fasteners amounted to over USD 4 billion (+10%), USD1.4 billion of which were generated from the export to the EU, a substantial increase of 18.5%. In addition, the total export value of solar and photoelectric products in the same year amounted to over USD9.3 billion (+10.9%), over USD0.8 billion of which were generated from the export to the EU, a stable growth of 2%. The above statistics reveal that both fasteners and photoelectric products have become important industries in Taiwan’s international trade.

However, as the EU currently found that some Chinese-made solar products were transshipped via the Free Trade Zones of Taiwan and were mislabeled with “Made-in-Taiwan” to circumvent antidumping and countervailing taxes, the EU then announced in the end of this May the anti-circumvention investigation against solar products imported from Taiwan. If the illegal transshipments are proved to be true, Taiwanese companies will be also influenced by the original antidumping and countervailing measures against China.

In order to prevent unworthy companies from continuously using Free Trade Zones of Taiwan as their bases to transship Chinese-made products and circumvent European antidumping measures, which may injure other Taiwanese fastener and photoelectric products suppliers, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Ministry of Finance of Taiwan have co-formulated the Administrative Guidelines for Free Trade Zones while the Bureau of Foreign Trade of Taiwan also invited officials from German Customs to give relevant speeches for Taiwanese companies and associations, in order to strengthen their understanding of the regulations and procedures for origin recognition of fasteners and photoelectric products and assist these companies in exporting to the EU with correct origin declaration.