Taiwan asks China to lift fruit suspension at WTO committee meeting

Taipei [Taiwan], November 5 : Taiwan has asked China to repeal its decision to unilaterally suspend the import of several fruits from Taiwan at a World Trade Organization (WTO) committee meeting on Wednesday.
This comes after Beijing suspended the import of Taiwanese wax apples and custard apples in September, stating that it had found mealybug in its shipments, Taiwan Focus reported.
A similar ban was imposed on Taiwan's pineapples in February, also over pest concerns.
On Wednesday, Taiwan's permanent representative to the WTO Lo Chang-fa refuted claims made by China, saying that said less than 0.3 per cent of imports of the two kinds of apples from Taiwan had been found at the Chinese border to have the bugs.
"Shortly after the Taiwanese authorities were notified of the pest problem by their Chinese counterparts, they stepped up measures to better monitor and quarantine fruit consignments," Lo said at a meeting of WTO meeting.
He further said China's import suspension targeting Taiwanese fruits had breached the WTO guidelines and lacked scientific backing. Lo asked the Chinese authorities to rescind its decision as soon as possible.
Taiwan took its row with China to the WTO shortly after Beijing introduced a fruit ban on Taiwanese wax apples and custard apples in September.