The Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday declined to confirm whether the progress of a cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China had slowed because of differences between the two sides over the list of items that would qualify for tariff removal or reduction.
GIO Minister Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said discussions between the two sides were still in progress and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government would continue to strive for the best possible “early harvest list” to meet public expectations.
On Saturday evening, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met with Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Mainland Affairs Council Chairperson Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) to discuss the ECFA issue.
The Ma administration is seeking to obtain “not just a good, but a better” early harvest list and wants to add more items soon after the pact is signed, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday.
In response, Chiang reiterated that the discussions were still ongoing and the government was determined to achieve a better “early harvest list.”
“The government is working toward that goal so as to maximize the pact’s benefits and minimize its negative public effects,” he said.
In the third formal round of ECFA talks that ended in Beijing on June 13, China agreed to Taiwan’s list of 500 items that will be entitled to preferential tariff treatment under an ECFA, while China listed some 200-odd items that were accepted by Taiwan.
However, Wu said on Thursday that the number of products on Taiwan’s list would be increased to about 510, while China would bump its number up to about 260 or 270.
In a related development, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), arguing that an ECFA with China would jeopardize Taiwan’s sovereignty and make it too economically dependent on China, said it was expecting more than 100,000 people to turn up at its upcoming anti-ECFA march.
The march, to be held in Taipei City on Saturday afternoon, will be joined by various pro-localization organizations who have appealed to the public to join the parade via social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and blogs.
Director of the DPP’s Taichung chapter, Chen Ta-chun (陳大鈞), said the party had received an overwhelming response from locals who have phoned in and signed up for transport for Saturday’s march.
Director of the DPP’s Changhua chapter, Charles Chiang (江昭儀), also reported that his chapter has had an excellent response to Saturday’s event over the past few days.
However, Chiang said budget constraints meant that only the county’s party chapter was able to rent two long-haul buses for the event, so some people from his county might not able to make it to the march despite their eagerness to attend.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS