Scholar suggests Taiwan finance sector enter China under WTO

Deng Lijuan, deputy director of the Taiwan Research Center of Xiamen University, said that for substantive progress in cross-strait cooperation, the financial sector should be included in the early harvest program of the proposed partial free-trade agreement between Taiwan and mainland China, known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).

Such an approach will realize the reciprocal market opening for the financial sector, while not violating WTO guidelines and regulations, and it would be more workable than signing a cross-strait Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), she added.

Deng was among a group of Taiwanese and mainland Chinese scholars from think tanks and universities speaking at a two-day seminar sponsored by the Pacific Cultural Foundation in Taipei on Friday and Saturday.

Deng, also raised a concept of setting up a special financial zone with more relaxed regulations on the coastal region in southeast China's Fujian Province for Taiwanese financial institutions.

However, several Taiwanese scholars suggested that the concept was not practical because Taiwanese institutions are eyeing a much larger market, especially markets in regions in China with a large concentration of Taiwanese-invested companies.

Professor Song Fengming of Tsinghua University in Beijing opined at the seminar that Taiwanese financial institutions should not expect guaranteed advantages in entering the Chinese market with more favorable treatments than those regulated by the WTO, since most clients would be inclined to seek services from banking institutions that are big, more experienced and have a longer standing.

Taiwanese banking institutions may find it hard to compete, he said.

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