Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) said yesterday that it would be regrettable if the cross-strait service trade agreement fails to pass the legislature in the near term.
The Chinese official said he expects Taiwan’s well-developed service sector, which accounts for 70 percent of its GDP, to integrate with China’s domestic market, which is seeking further liberalization.
The two nations are expected to benefit from the service trade agreement because it is key to adjustments in the two sides’ current economic structures and covers a wide range of industries, he said.
“If the agreement passes, it will contribute greatly to Taiwan’s economic development. If the deal fails to pass, I will feel deep regret for Taiwanese,” Chen said during a keynote speech at a business seminar held by Lingnan College at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.
Chen said he does not understand whether protesters in Taiwan have concerns about the content or the approval process of the trade pact, but added that the two types of concerns are different issues.
He was responding to the student-led protesters’ occupation of the Legislative Yuan in reaction to an attempt by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to send the agreement straight to a vote on the legislative floor, bypassing legislative committee review.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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