Follow-up talks on a landmark Taiwan-China trade pact signed last year will begin next week, an economics official said yesterday.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Francis Liang (梁國新) said that three working groups set up by the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Committee (ECC) would embark on the talks, which will cover merchandise trade, service trade and dispute settlement.
“The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have begun active communications to prepare for next week’s talks,” Liang said.
He said the ECC, established to handle follow-up talks after the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework AGreement (ECFA) in June last year, decided to hold the talks before the middle of this month during its first regular meeting on Feb. 22.
Liang said 5,824 items would be reviewed in the merchandise trade talks, with agricultural products excluded from the discussions.
Taiwan will also make flat panels, finished automobiles, certain plastics and machine tool categories the top priorities for tariff reductions in the talks.
On a dispute settlement mechanism, one economics official said the arbitration system under the dispute settlement mechanism was related to cross-strait investment protection pact negotiations that were already under way.
For this reason, if a cross-strait investment protection agreement can solve the arbitration problem, talks on dispute settlement would also progress smoothly, the official said.
He said the ministry has not only targeted the signing of an investment protection agreement for the next round of cross-strait meetings, expected in the first half of this year, but has also set the signing of a cross-strait dispute settlement mechanism pact as a goal for the meeting.
In addition, more than 100 items are to be reviewed in the service trade talks.
Meanwhile, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said that with the launch of the ECC, cross-strait trade, Chinese investment and entry to Taiwan of Chinese students would increase.
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