Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) yesterday said the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation committee tasked with following up on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) will be formed no later than March next year.
Work on the ECFA has been progressing on schedule since the agreement was signed in June, he said ahead of his departure next week for Yokohama, Japan, for the APEC summit on Nov. 13 and 14.
The proposed committee will deal with matters such as further negotiations on uncompleted tasks, supervision of overall operations, clarification of rules and regulations stated in the ECFA and resolution of potential controversies, Shih said.
Taiwan and China still have to come to terms on the organization and leadership of the committee, which, according to the terms of the ECFA, will operate under the framework of the already existing Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on the Taipei side and the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
On his Japan trip, Shih said he didn’t expect Taipei and Singapore to achieve concrete results on a proposed free-trade agreement when the two sides meet in Yokohama, given that the APEC is a multilateral meeting among various countries and not a bilateral meeting.
He added that the talks with Singapore had been going smoothly and a formal announcement would be made in due time.
Meanwhile, Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) is expected to share how Taiwan weathered the global financial storm during the APEC finance ministers’ meeting today in Kyoto, Japan, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.
Lee will report on Taiwan’s economic outlook, the monetary and financial measures the government adopted during the financial storm, tax reforms and management of national assets.
Taiwan hopes that through this sharing and exchange of opinions, economies in the region will together promote a stronger, more balanced and sustainable economic development for the Asia-Pacific region, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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