Taipei and Beijing will hold the third round of negotiations on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) in Beijing on Sunday, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said yesterday.
In a statement, the SEF said Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬) would lead the delegation. Members will include officials from the Industrial Development Bureau, the Investment Commission, the International Trade Commission, the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the SEF.
Negotiations will focus on the text of the proposed accord and “early harvest” program, it said, adding that both sides would also exchange opinions on the arrangement of the subsequent negotiations.
The “early harvest” list refers to a list of goods and services that will be subject to immediate tariff concessions or exemptions, which are expected to form the backbone of the proposed deal.
Huang was in Beijing from Tuesday until yesterday, where he was reportedly making last-ditch efforts to seek a breakthrough in deadlocked talks on the inclusion of the machine tools, polypropylene and PVC industries in the “early harvest” list for tariff exemptions or reductions. Among the Chinese officials sources said he met with was Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Director Tang Wei (唐煒).
MAC officials had previously said the two sides might need to hold one more round of ECFA negotiations before SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) can meet his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), to sign the deal.
MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) yesterday said a fourth round of negotiations would most likely be needed because Sunday’s negotiations would focus more on the text of the planned pact than on the “early harvest” list.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) confirmed yesterday that the two sides would not exchange “early harvest” lists during talks on Sunday. However, he said it remained the common goal of both sides to sign the trade deal by the end of this month.
Liu said the delegation would leave tomorrow and return on Monday. Since both sides would also touch on trade in services, Liu said members from the Government Information Office, Department of Health and Ministry of Transportation and Communications would also attend.
The proposed pact would cover the following seven areas: traded goods, investment, trade in services, trade remedies, dispute settlement, economic cooperation and certification of place of origin.
Liu said that because both sides have made substantial progress in negotiations on the certification of place of origin, there would not be many negotiators from the Ministry of Finance at Sunday’s negotiations. Certification of place of origin would be attached to an ECFA in an appendix, Liu said.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the administration’s plan to sign an ECFA this month remained unchanged, but added that he could not guarantee other countries would want to sign free-trade agreements with Taiwan after an ECFA is signed. However, he said the odds of signing free-trade agreements with other countries would increase once an ECFA is signed.
Ma made the remarks while meeting members of the Industrial Park Manufacturer Federation of the Republic of China at the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon.
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