CECA is non-political: Ma

Ma said Taipei urgently needs such an agreement with Beijing, now that China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are set to form a free trade zone in 2010.

The establishment of the free trade area means that Taiwan's petrochemical, electronics, textile and machine tool exports to China would be subject to a 6.5 percent import duty, crippling the island's competitiveness against ASEAN members, he said.

Many businesses would then leave Taiwan for Southeast Asia, resulting in a loss of 114,000 jobs on the island, and a one-percentage-point in its gross domestic product (GDP), the president said.

"We are already five or six years late in pushing for such an agreement," Ma said during an interview with the cable TV network ERANews. "The present situation has reached the point where something must be done."

But China is not the only target for such an agreement, as Taiwan will, at the same time, try to negotiate with other countries, he said.

"If we don't do it today, we'll regret it tomorrow," the president stressed in his first specific public comment this year on the proposed pact.

The government's attempt to reach a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) with China has provoked strong objection from the pro-independence camp, which argues it would undermine Taiwan's sovereignty and pave the way for cross-strait unification.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the CECA, despite its name, is similar to the closer economic partnership arrangement (CEPA) signed in 2003 between China and its special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

But Ma maintained that the pact Taiwan is seeking to sign with China is "definitely not a CEPA."

The CECA would also be different from an ordinary free trade agreement (FTA), although it would be signed under the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework and have similar functions to an FTA, he added.

"The situation between Taiwan and the mainland is very special, which allows for the existence of certain specialities in bilateral agreements," he said.

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