Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) yesterday said a planned cross-strait service trade agreement will contribute to the modernization of the service industry and create jobs on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Lin made the remarks at a welcoming ceremony held after his arrival at the Dongjiao State Guest Hotel in Shanghai ahead of a new round of high-level cross-strait talks today.
Lin was greeted at the hotel by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘).
Photo: CNA
“It feels like an encounter between old friends even though we have never met before,” Lin said when he first set eyes on Chen.
Today’s meeting will be the ninth round of high-level talks between the foundation and ARATS since June 2008.
On the agenda is the signing of a service trade agreement to further expand cross-strait markets. The agreement will be a major follow-up to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in 2010.
Lin said the service industry contributed more to China’s annual GDP than its manufacturing sector for the first time in the first quarter of this year, while the service sector already accounts for 72 percent of Taiwan’s GDP.
However, the service sector ratios of Taiwan and China are low in comparison with those of advanced countries, he said.
“Therefore, there is still ample room for the service sectors on both sides to grow,” Lin said, adding that he is convinced the new pact will help speed up service industry modernization and create more jobs and business opportunities in both Taiwan and China.
Chen said the new accord would be an important milestone in ECFA implementation.
In the face of mounting global financial and economic challenges and competition, the two sides of the Strait should cooperate closely to upgrade their competitiveness and avoid being marginalized, he said.
The two sides will also review how previous cross-strait agreements have been implemented and draw up an agenda for the next round of high-level talks, Lin said.
Topics include cooperation in tax and avoidance of double taxation, meteorological studies, seismic monitoring and natural disaster prevention.
Lin’s delegation includes foundation Vice Chairman and Secretary-General Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉), Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) and Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Cho Shih-chao (卓士昭).
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods