Taiwan severs machine tool supplies to Russia after schemes exposed by Ukrainian think tank
Taiwan’s government took action after schemes were exposed by foreign think tanks, including Ukraine’s Center for Defense Reforms, of Taiwanese machine tool supplies to Russia in evasion of international sanctions.
That’s according to Guildhall referring to the Taiwenese economy ministry, Ukrinform reports.
Based on the report by the Center for Defense Reforms "Bring to bear: Taiwan's critical imports to Russia", the government of Taiwan has tightened export control measures for the supply of dual-purpose goods to Russia, including machine tools, as a result of which such supplies were completely stopped. Also, a number of decisions aimed at strengthening export control over supplies of strategic high-tech products to Russia and increasing international cooperation in this area have been adopted.
“In view of the dual-use characteristics of machine tools and the possibility of being used for Russian military purposes, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has taken a number of actions, with 77 HS Codes related to machine tools being included in the export control list since March 8 this year. The industry has also actively aligned with government measures. Since the implementation of the said expanded control measures, the amount of Taiwan's machine tools exported to Russia has dropped to zero. This result shows that the control measures taken by the Ministry of Economic Affairs have achieved initial results,” the Ministry of Economy stated.
In response to changes in the international situation, the Ministry of Economic Affairs says it will contiue monitoring exports of Taiwan's strategic high-tech products to Russia. In
In addition to expanding the scope of export control of machine tools in March this year, it also significantly increased the first-time violation penalties for exports to Russia and Belarus by more than 15 times, that is, to 1 million New Taiwan Dollars, in order to strengthen deterrence and ensure the implementation of export control measures.
To ensure that manufacturers implement due diligence and verify the final flow of goods, Taiwan’s government has been campaigning among manufacturers, urging them to comply with laws and control the final flow of products.
Since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has held 19 seminars, some of which had export control officials from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT/T) invited to give lectures to help industry actors understand the latest international trends and prevent violations.
“The Ministry of Economic Affairs continues to cooperate with like-minded countries to jointly respond to the challenges of arms expansion, and, through international cooperation mechanisms, to exchange export control experiences with each other and jointly combat illegal trade practices,” the statement said, adding that the officials will pay close attention to intetnational developments and adjust export control measures on a rolling basis to respond to changes.
It should be recalled that Russia, despite the existing sanctions, continues to receive Taiwanese components for its military industry through evasion schemes with the participation of China and other countries, which allows Russia’s defense industry to retain supplies of necessary materials, including machine tools, semiconductors, and microelectronic components, as per the report drawn by the Center for Defense Reforms think tank.