No significant progress was made in the latest negotiations over a trade in goods agreement with China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday, following the completion of the 10th round of talks in Beijing yesterday afternoon.
“We still have a long way to go before signing the cross-strait trade in goods pact,” Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Jenni Yang (楊珍妮), who led Taiwan’s negotiation team for the three days of talks, said in a teleconference from Beijing.
Yang said tariff treatments for Taiwanese industries, including on machine tools, flat panels, automobiles and petrochemicals, were discussed in the latest round of negotiations, but no consensus was reached.
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” Yang said. “However, at least Taiwan and China know more about each other’s industries.”
Yang made similar remarks after technical talks with China four months ago, when she said that both sides of the Taiwan Strait were still gaining more information and knowledge about each other’s industries.
The recent Bejing-Seoul trade pact was brought up many times during the three days, with Taiwan expressing a desire to gain more favorable tariff treatments than South Korea, Yang said.
Quoting China’s response, Yang said that as Taiwan and South Korea have different economies of scale and industry backgrounds, Taiwan should not accept the Beijing-Seoul trade pact as a benchmark.
“China’s response helps us to understand more about its ideas and opinions,” Yang said.
The two sides did not discuss when or where the next technical discussion or round of talks would take place, Yang said.
“We need to process the information from this round before approaching each other for the next one,” she said.
However, the three-day meet did yield some progress in non-tariff barriers, such as simplifying customs, and animal and plant quarantine regulations, she said.
“The details are not finalized, but both sides reached a preliminary consensus to speed up the customs process,” Yang said.
Chen Xing (陳星), head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, did not lead Beijing’s negotiation team in the latest trade talks due to health issues. Xu Mang (徐莽), an economic affairs representative at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, took Chen’s place to lead the latest talks with Taipei.
In light of this, Taiwan’s negotiation representative was replaced by Bureau of Foreign Trade Deputy Director-General David Hsu (徐大衛), Yang said.
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