Taiwan should focus on joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) instead of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), academics said yesterday.
Mignonne Chan (詹滿容), executive director of the Chinese Taipei Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center, said at a forum on regional integration that if Taiwan joins negotiations under the RCEP, the potential economic benefits would be twice as great as those under the TPP.
The RCEP was first discussed at the 19th ASEAN Summit in November last year. A RCEP framework was set out between the 10 ASEAN member states that maps out the general principles for broadening and deepening ASEAN’s engagement with its free-trade agreement partners. ASEAN members’ free-trade partners include Australia, China, South Korea and Japan.
The RCEP market is estimated to have a combined population of more than 3 billion and a combined GDP of about US$19.9 trillion. The integrated market would be the largest in the world, said Lin Chien-fu (林建甫), professor of economics at National Taiwan University.
He said that the combined GDP, population and trade volume of the RCEP would be bigger than the TPP, even if Canada, Japan and Mexico all join the TPP in future.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
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