Taiwan will face serious economic danger unless it concludes the controversial economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday.
“Not signing it would bring immediate and unlimited danger. We would be finished,” Wu told the legislative in response to a lawmaker’s question on what the administration would do if Taiwan fails to clinch the trade pact with China.
“The government will spare no effort to push for its success,” the premier said.
If the pact were not signed, it would be difficult to imagine the suffering the country would endure as more ASEAN members join a regional trade bloc from which Taiwan is excluded, he said.
When South Korea joins the bloc in the future, Taiwanese goods would have trouble competing against South Korean goods in China because they would be exempted from 9 percent import duties while Taiwanese-made goods would be subject to the tariffs, Wu said.
“No business can survive [under those circumstances],” he said.
The pact would help Taiwanese businesses sell their goods and enhance the country’s competitiveness in general because it would exempt locally made products from tariffs, safeguard the investment of Taiwanese companies in China and protect their intellectual property rights, he said.
Wu reiterated the government’s promise that the pact would not open the local market to more Chinese agricultural products or allow Chinese to work in Taiwan.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), however, voiced concerns that China might demand that Taiwan have to change the label of origin on Taiwanese products from “Taiwan” to “Taiwan (China)” or “Chinese Taipei” if Taipei and Beijing sign the ECFA.
But Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said Taiwanese products sold around the world are labeled “made in Taiwan” and this label would never change.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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