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.
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