The United States continues to work hard to achieve approval of both accessions this year. Once Taiwan and the PRC are part of the WTO, both will have more opportunities for contact and greater interdependence within the useful discipline of a rules-based international trading organization. This WTO relationship should deter conflict, guiding energy into more productive channels. We also anticipate that Taiwan's participation in WTO will accelerate important political and economic reforms affecting bilateral trade with the United States such as government procurement, telecommunications services, and the protection of intellectual property. More fundamentally, WTO accession will reinforce Taiwan's own efforts to dismantle protected monopolies and improve the competitive climate inside Taiwan, particularly the regulatory system.
Globalization is on the march.
When it comes to improving the quality of transportation decision-making to support globalization we are clearly faced with a challenge. We face choices about protecting the environment of our native lands and the world. At the top of the list of challenges we face, is the need to effectively integrate new technology and information systems with the transportation system. However, e-commerce still requires planes, trains, and trucks to move goods to their destinations after they are ordered on the Internet. The future of transportation then, is clearly about choices.