The availability of these new currencies will allow Australian exporters to sell their goods online to more customers in the Asia-Pacific region in their own money.

“The addition of these new currencies makes it even easier to use PayPal around the world,” said Scott Thompson, PayPal’s president.

PayPal also announced that it has opened its PayPal X global payments platform to third-party developers, for the purposes of developing currency conversion applications using live exchange rates.

Thompson said the new currencies, together with PayPal X, allows users greater flexibility: “Consumers have more choice in how they pay, merchants can conduct business in more markets around the world, and developers can now create multi-currency applications built on PayPal X.”

In February, Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou proposed an Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement, which covered tax reductions, market access, investment and trade, to allow Taiwan to access opportunities between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, after an earlier signing of an economic co-operation agreement between China and ASEAN.

The Taiwanese economy is in recession, projected to decline by four percent in 2009, and Ma hopes a treaty will aid in Taiwan’s recovery. However, many of his constituents fear that trade integration will lead to political integration.

Also on the table is a memorandum of understanding that will link the two countries’ financial systems and allow Chinese investors to buy Taiwanese stocks.

While the figures are well below 2008 levels for the corresponding period, they represent a step towards recovery. Economists also believe that government stimulus measures may have contributed and have expressed cautious optimism.

“It looks like there is a recovery in trade that is happening, but it’s too early to tell if it’s the stimulus or a real recovery,” remarked Mark Matthews, a strategist from investment bank Fox-Pitt Kelton in Hong Kong.

The tumbling US dollar has pushed prices up making export difficult for a number of countries, particularly those that compete with China, which carries a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar.

Economists also hope holiday retail spending will lift trade in the coming months.

“Taiwan is a world leader in the sale of ICT products, earning an average of US$90 billion a year in sales revenue, and makes 29 primarily ICT products which are ranked number one in the world in terms of production value or volume,” he said.

“While Australia’s ICT industry is highly innovative, Australian companies can find barriers to the international market in the commercialisation, manufacture and distribution of their products. A Taiwan partner can provide a pragmatic pathway to market for Australian innovation in North East Asia and around the world.”

Speaking at the 5th Australia-Taiwan ICT Talks, Byrne said the relationship would be strategic, enabling Australia businesses to use Taiwan as a trade hub.

After yesterday reporting a 42 percent rise in full-year profit to $267.6 million, the miner said steel mills in the long-established markets had returned to at least 80 percent capacity.

Felix Resources managing director Brian Flannery said despite the positive results, the next few months would test the strength of the rebound in demand.

”They’re probably not back to 100 per cent, but they’re probably not far from it,” Flannery said of the miner’s traditional customers.

China, Japan, and Taiwan were the main countries affected: millions evacuated storm-hit provinces in China, while Typhoon Etau causes floods and landslides in Japan, disrupting transport networks. Typhoon Morakot flooded Taiwan with a record 2,500mm of rain, brought down bridges and cut power and water supplies to some areas.

Local reports in Taiwan estimate that 200 homes in the village of Hsiaolin have been buried in a mudslide, and that Morakot has caused some T$3.4 billion (A$120 million) worth of agricultural damage.

Japan’s meteorological agency warned that Typhoon Etau, with winds of more than 100 kph, would hit the Tokyo area sometime today, issuing nationwide heavy rain and landslide warnings.

While the speed of decline has eased, the trade results – also taking into account a 3.1 percent decline in their exports from March to April – has reinvigorated fears that the global economy will be adversely affected.

Industries based on discretionary consumption, such as cars and televisions, have been hardest hit, with exporters from Asia – Taiwan’s electronics sector and Korea’s car industry, for example – suffering from dampened US demand.

However, World Trade Organisation head Pascal Lamy has indicated that measures such as the Doha trade negotiations are still in play as countries recognise the need to maintain trade levels.