ON THE BRINK: Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US climbed to US$19.26bn in the first 10 months. The threshold to decide whether a nation is a currency manipulator is US$20bn
Taipei Times
Date: Dec 25, 2019
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said that it plans to increase purchases of US goods such as agricultural products and crude oil in an attempt to narrow its trade surplus with the US and avoid being placed on Washington’s currency monitoring list.
Taiwan is at risk of being added to the currency manipulation watch list, as the nation’s trade surplus with the US is expected to surpass the US$20 billion threshold set by the US, the central bank said.
In the first 10 months of this year, Taiwan saw its trade surplus with the US climb to US$19.26 billion, statistics from the monetary policymaker showed.
The three criteria used by the US Department of the Treasury to determine whether a country or territory is a currency manipulator are: a significant trade surplus with the US, a material current-account surplus and involvement in persistent one-sided intervention in foreign exchange markets.
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