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Updated Wednesday, March 31, 2010 9:32 am TWN, The China Post news staff

ECFA by June: Shih

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang expressed yesterday optimism at formally signing a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China by June.

The second round of the cross-strait trade talks will be held today and tomorrow at the Ta Shee Resort in Taoyuan County, some 40 km south of Taipei.

Speaking on the eve of the conference, Shih said the negotiations will focus on items in the machinery, upstream and midstream textile, petroleum and transport manufacturing sectors, which are among the 500 items Taiwan has put on its “early harvest” list for immediate tariff easing or lifting upon the signing of the cross-strait trade pact.

Minister Shih explained that Taiwan is eager to talk about items that are either on the zero-tariff list of the free trade agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or that are major exports of Taiwan.

Taiwan's exports of those items to China are facing strong competition from ASEAN exporters and it is much more urgent to have them secured on the ECFA's early-harvest list than other items, Shih said.

He noted that the flat panel fabrication sector, which at one point was said to be on the agenda of the upcoming ECFA talks, will not be on the priority list for the negotiations.

Overall, Shih expects the Chinese side to have deeper slashes of tariff rates on imports from Taiwan mainly because the import duty rates in China remain higher than the rates in Taiwan.

Members of the Taiwanese delegation attending the Taoyuan talks will include officials of the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) and the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the Mainland Affairs Council — Taiwan's highest authority in charge of China affairs — as well as officials of the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and other relevant government agencies.

The Chinese delegation will be composed of officials from China's trade and economic departments as well as board members of the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).

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	Zhou Ning, left, chief of the Department of Law and Regulation at the Taiwan Affairs Office under China's State Council, arrives at Taoyuan International Airport. Zhou, concurrently a director of the Beijing-based semiofficial ARATS, led a second group of 21 Chinese officials to the Ta Shee Resort yesterday to help prepare for the new round of two-day trade talks. (CNA) Enlarge Photo


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