Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) met his Chinese counterpart behind closed doors in Singapore yesterday to work out an agenda for bilateral talks on a proposed bilateral economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
Shih’s meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming (陳德銘) took place one day after Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) promised Lien Chan (連戰), Taiwan’s representative to the annual APEC summit, that talks on an ECFA could start within this year.
Bureau of Foreign Trade Director Huang Chih-peng (陳德銘) and Lu Wen-hsiang (盧文祥), a section chief at Taiwan’s representative office in Singapore, accompanied Shih to the meeting.
Sources close to the Taiwanese APEC delegation said Shih and Chen discussed the ECFA-related consultative framework, timetable and topics to be addressed in the pact.
The sources said ECFA issues were expected to be touched upon during the next round of cross-strait talks scheduled for next month in Taichung City, in accordance with Hu’s promise to Lien on Saturday.
Four agreements are scheduled to be signed during the Taichung round of talks between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
Shih said the four agreements concern fishing crew cooperation, farm produce quarantine inspection, avoidance of double taxation and industrial product standards, inspection and certification.
“All these agreements are very important in the process of normalizing cross-strait trade and economic relations,” Shih said.
The consensus reached at previous cross-strait talks is that the relevant EFCA issues will be tentatively discussed at next month’s Chiang-Chen talks and then Taiwan and China will start formal negotiations on an ECFA issues in January.
An ECFA is expected to signed at the fifth round of Chiang-Chen talks, scheduled for the first half of next year.
The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have held four rounds of informal talks on ECFA, all of which focused on principles related to an “early harvest list,” or items subject to tariff concessions or full market opening as soon as an ECFA pact is signed.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) has said that the signing of an ECFA with China was urgently needed because a free-trade agreement between China and ASEAN will take effect next year, marginalizing Taiwan and crippling its economy.
The Ma government hopes the pact will serve as a stepping-stone for the signing of free-trade agreements with other countries.
Critics, however, have warned that the agreement will jeopardize Taiwan’s sovereignty, make it too economically dependent on China and lead to an influx of Chinese capital and goods.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS