Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday said it would be “very challenging” to complete negotiations on a cross-strait trade in goods agreement before the end of the month.
“We said that we hoped to have a major breakthrough before the end of this year, but we later found out there are more issues to be negotiated than we expected,” Deng told reporters on the sidelines of a public hearing on the trade pact at the legislature.
“The two sides are getting clearer about what each other’s needs for their industries are, but there are differences that remain to be resolved,” he said.
The ministry has not set a time frame to finish the talks, he said.
“I can only say we will do our best to move forward,” he said.
There has been speculation that one of the reasons the formal talk held between Nov. 21 and Nov. 23 failed to reach a conclusion was because Taiwan insisted that it would not allow the import of more than 600 Chinese agricultural products, even as it sought beneficial tariff treatments from Beijing for four main industries — flat panels, petrochemicals, machine tools and automobiles.
China cannot offer satisfactory tariff treatment for Taiwan at the moment, so the government cannot agree to some of Beijing’s requests, Deng said, adding that another round of formal talks is scheduled for later this month.
At the hearing, Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械工業同業公會) vice chairman Chuck Chen (陳士端) said his group hopes the government can accelerate the progress of the trade in goods agreement.
“As far as I know, Taiwan and China still cannot agree on the tariff treatments on more than 60 machine tool products. We hope the government can help us negotiate better terms,” Chen said.
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) said it would be hard for Taiwan to make progress on the agreement if the government insists on barring Chinese agricultural imports.
“Negotiations are about give and take. The government would never hurt Taiwan’s agricultural industry, but how can we ask them to talk with us if we do not open the doors for their products while asking them to offer zero-tariff treatments for our goods?” Chen said.
However, National Fishermen’s Association (中華民國全國漁會) general manager Lin Chi-chang (林啟滄) said the government should still restrict certain aquatic products from China, such as oysters, grouper or sea bass.
“We agree to ease the restrictions on some aquatic products, but it cannot be all of the products. The successes of Taiwan’s agriculture and fishery industries are partly because of those restrictions and protective measures,” Lin said.
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