While President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has been trumpeting the expected economic benefits of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which was signed in 2010, the latest statistics from the Ministry of Audit and the Ministry of Finance show otherwise.
According to the Ministry of Audit, preferential tariffs that took effect in January 2011 on a list of “early harvest” products as defined by the agreement have only had a limited contribution to the total value of cross-strait trade.
The Ministry of Finance’s data also showed that from 2011 to last year, the nation’s trade surplus has diminished each year, with last year’s trade surplus being NT$36 billion (US$1.2 billion) less than that of 2011.
The Executive Yuan, responding to the Ministry of Audit, said that because the products on the early harvest list count for only 7 percent of the total items that carry export tariffs, they have only a limited impact on the growth of overall trade value.
National Taiwan University economics professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) said the numbers show that Ma’s hyping of the gains that have been achieved by the ECFA has been a lie, adding that the Ministry of Audit’s report is a slap in the president’s face.
The Ma administration chose to underline only the number of products on the early harvest list and failed to negotiate for the substantive liberalization of certain goods that could have benefited Taiwan the most, Lin said, citing flat-panel displays and automobiles as examples that have been excluded from the tariff concession list.
The economics professor said that the limited substantive benefits of the agreement is a result caused by the Ma administration’s policy of openness toward Beijing.
The government had argued that the ECFA’s signing could create at least 260,000 job opportunities in the nation, correlating to a 2 percent decrease in the unemployment rate, but there has been less than a 0.5 percent decrease, said Lin, who attributed Ma’s championing of the agreement to the president’s pro-China ideology.
According to the finance ministry’s Customs Administration, total goods exports to China were valued at US$83.9 billion in 2011, US$80.7 billion in 2012 and US$81.7 billion last year; the trade surpluses were US$40.3 billion, US$39.8 billion and US$39.1 billion respectively.
Of the total goods exports, the gross export value of the items enjoying preferential tariffs on the early harvest list were US$17.9 billion, US$18.5 billion and US$20.5 billion and the surpluses were US$12.9 billion, US$13.6 billion and US$15.5 billion respectively.
The Ministry of Audit said that the total value of cross-strait trade has seen a limited uptick since the early harvest list came into effect, to which the Executive Yuan responded that it would continue its negotiations with Beijing to secure better terms.
Since the benefits yielded by the agreement have contradicted the government’s expectations, it should reassess the effect of the yet-to-take-effect cross-strait service trade agreement and the proposed agreement for cross-strait trade in goods, Lin said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
RSS