Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) yesterday defended the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) for having financial institutions promote the government’s planned economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.
At a press conference, Lin said promotion was not mandatory, adding that the FSC only sent a document suggesting that financial institutions help promote the ECFA with China.
“Securities firms enjoy the right to decide for themselves,” Lin said yesterday, after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday quoted anonymous securities businesses as complaining that the government had been forcing financial institutions to help promote the trade pact.
The report said the FSC resolved during a meeting on March 2 to require all local financial industry associations to hold sessions to promote and explain the ECFA. The associations, in turn would issue documents to state-owned and private banks and other financial institutions, urging them to cooperate while members should report their promotional achievements back to the associations, which would then report to the FSC, the story said.
The report cited a document issued by the Taiwan Securities Association (TSA) to its members as saying that financial associations had printed reminders, handouts and marketing material for promoting the ECFA, which would be delivered to association members on April 9.
The report said the TSA required that its members choose managers who could serve as lecturers to promote the ECFA while employees at securities firms should carry ECFA material with them so that they could explain the nature of the pact to their family and customers.
The report also quoted an unidentified FSC official as saying that the FSC only asked financial associations to pass the government’s ECFA material to their members, adding that the it could not force businesses to do anything they were reluctant to do.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pan Meng-an (潘孟安) urged the Control Yuan to censure the KMT administration for abusing government authority to promote the ECFA, adding that signing an ECFA is not yet a national policy because the contents of the proposed agreement has not cleared the legislative floor.
Lin shrugged off the criticism.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know what nonsense the DPP is talking about,” Lin said, adding that signing an ECFA is a national policy proposed by the Executive Yuan.
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