The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday criticized the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on its upcoming one-year anniversary, saying that it has pushed Taiwan’s dependency on China to historic highs.
Referring to government statistics, DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said the tariff reducing agreement has focused trade with China at the expense of competitiveness with other key trading partners including Japan and the US.
Ministry of Economic Affairs data shows that the percentage of exports to China reached 41.8 percent last year, a new high, while US$4.5 billion, or 82.6 percent of Taiwan’s foreign investments, also went across the strait, another historic high.
“There are very few countries in the world that depend on China economically as much as Taiwan currently does,” Chen said, adding that the ECFA, instead of reversing the trend as government officials initially claimed, appears to have exacerbated it.
Taiwan’s exports grew 19.5 -percent in the first four months of this year, far slower than South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, despite the passage of the ECFA, the DPP spokesperson said.
At the same time, Taiwan’s share of the Chinese market fell to 7.38 percent in the first quarter, a drop from 8.4 percent in the same period last year, reflecting the latest in a five-year trend despite the passage of the ECFA, according to CEIC China Database statistics.
Research from the DPP suggests that Taiwan’s share of the US and Japanese markets have both fallen in the first four months of this year to 1.82 percent from 1.88 percent and to 2.86 percent from 3.33 percent, respectively. Together with China, the three markets account for almost 60 percent of exports.
“Increasing the competitiveness of Taiwan’s exports requires increasing value and continuously making breakthroughs in research. However, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has solely relied on the ECFA, a tariff reducing agreement, to help Taiwanese products,” Chen said.
“The newest numbers should provide his administration with a clear warning,” he added.
The DPP’s remarks were in response to the president’s recent interview with BBC World News.
During the interview, broadcast on Wednesday, Ma defended his administration’s China policy, including the ECFA, saying that the agreement has encouraged other countries to seek closer economic ties with Taiwan.
“The ECFA effect has not only been on our trade with the mainland, but on our entire export market,” Ma said, adding that trade with the US, Europe, Japan and other southeast Asian countries have “also jumped.”
The DPP has not said what concrete measures it would take toward the ECFA, if elected next year. DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said that parts of the agreement that are “detrimental to Taiwan” would be reviewed if necessary.
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