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Updated Sunday, October 18, 2009 11:20 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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ECFA will need ratification: President Ma

After the ECFA is inked, it is estimated to create as many as 350,000 job opportunities for local people, but around 80,000 workers will see their jobs affected by the ECFA. To counter this, the Ministry of Economic Affairs will appropriate some NT$35 billion to help a total of 3,700 plants in some traditional industries upgrade their operations or change into other businesses, lest they should be seriously eroded by the ECFA.

The premier also stressed that the government will not allow the entry of mainland Chinese workers and imports of 826 agricultural products in order to minimize the impact on domestic workers and farmers.

Meanwhile, P.K. Chiang, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said yesterday that the ECFA should be signed during the fifth round of talks with his Chinese counterpart, Chairman Chen Yunlin of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), expected to be held in the first half of next year.

Chiang said that he will officially raise the proposal in his next meeting with ARATS's Chen, the fourth in a series of talks since June 2008, which will take place in December in the central Taiwan city of Taichung. The two officials are expected to sign four agreements regarding fishing crew cooperation, agricultural quarantine inspection, industrial product standards, inspection and certification, and the avoidance of double taxation.

During the meeting, Chiang and Chen will also discuss the proposed items to be included on the agenda of the fifth round of talks.

According to Chiang, in addition to the signing of the ECFA, the SEF also hopes that an investment protection agreement can be signed at that time.

President Ma has been pushing for the signing of the ECFA with China in an effort to reduce the impact of the new China Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade area on Taiwanese businesses.

After the China-ASEAN economic integration, which begins Jan. 1, 2010, petrochemical products, textiles, automobile parts and machinery exports from ASEAN nations to China will enjoy tariff-free treatment, which will seriously undermine the competitiveness of similar products from Taiwan.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs has recently completed a tentative early-harvest list that would be included in the proposed ECFA and is expected to negotiate the details with China soon.

Critics of the proposed pact argue that it will undermine Taiwan's sovereignty and unleash a flood of cheap Chinese imports and an exodus of capital that will worsen Taiwan's already record-high unemployment.

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