Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) said yesterday that he and Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming (陳德銘) had agreed to initiate official cross-strait talks on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) in October.
The ministry would make public an assessment report on the ECFA deal on Wednesday Yiin said. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait would conduct a joint study over the next two months on the proposed pact before official negotiations begin, he said.
His comments came after he met Chen and discussed the ECFA issue for the first time this week in Singapore on the sidelines of a two-day APEC forum there.
“Due to the strong willingness on both sides … The official discussion can be completed sometime before the end of this year,” he said.
If possible, the official talks might be completed in October or November so the actual signing of the framework document could take place during the next “Chiang-Chen” meeting, he said.
However, signing an ECFA “is not an issue that can be decided by Taiwan only,” he said.
The “Chiang-Chen” meetings are the negotiations between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林). The pair have met three times since last November. The exact time and place of a fourth meeting are under discussion.
Asked if the next “Chiang-Chen meeting” would touch on the ECFA issue, Yiin said he had no comment because the ministry doesn’t have the authority to speak for other government agencies.
In Singapore, Chen Deming “agreed to Taiwan’s three-step process in dealing with the ECFA issue, as well as Taiwan’s request of inclusion of an ‘early harvest clause’ in the pact,” Yiin said.
The three-step process refers to independent research on ECFA by both sides, which took place during the first half of this year, the ensuing three to nine months of joint study on the issue and then the official negotiations.
The two sides have held two private meetings on ECFA, which were crucial to reaching consensus, Yiin said, while the third meeting would be a formal process where officials would address sensitive commercial issues.
Under the proposed ECFA, the manufacturing sector would be included in the early harvest clause, but Yiin could not reveal which businesses would be involved.
In other news, Yiin dismissed speculations that government-led Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣記憶體公司) had failed to set an example in restructuring the local dynamic random access memory sector. He said TMC’s plan to rebuild the industry in Taiwan was on schedule.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS