Taipei and Beijing are still negotiating the “best timing” to submit the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) document to the WTO, government officials said.
Chang Chun-fu (張俊福), deputy director of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ (MOEA) Bureau of Foreign Trade, said both sides had translated the document into English, but had yet to decide when to notify the global trade body on the content of the pact.
“We are taking all things into consideration, but there is no time limit,” he said, adding that some countries took years to complete the process.
Earlier last week, the bureau’s ECFA Task Force told the Taipei Times it “would notify the ECFA to the WTO pursuant to the WTO’s rules and procedures,” adding that “as a usual practice, we will consult the other signatory before making any RTA [regional trade agreement] notifications.”
“Therefore, regarding the ECFA notification, we will discuss it with China and notify the WTO in due course,” it said.
Chang said that while the WTO does not set a time limit for the submission, it was understood that two to three years was not acceptable.
As the two sides have only completed negotiations on the “early harvest” program, more agreements needed to be negotiated after the ECFA was signed, Chang said.
However, he denied that the two sides would wait until a subsequent agreement under the ECFA framework was completed before sending a notification to the WTO.
Bureau of Foreign Trade chief secretary Chiang Wen-juo (江文若) said this approach was a “higher-level” decision and that she was in no position to offer any comment.
On Dec. 14, 2006, the General Council of the WTO established, on a provisional basis, a transparency mechanism for all RTAs that provides for the early announcement of any RTA — such as the ECFA — and notification to the WTO. Member economies are to consider the notified RTAs on the basis of a factual presentation by the WTO Secretariat.
The Committee on Regional Trade Agreements considers RTAs falling under Article XXIV of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and, if applicable, Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
The US government has expressed concerns over the fact that the ECFA documents signed by Taiwan and China in June last year have yet to be submitted to the WTO as promised, especially after the ECFA came into force on Sept. 12 and its early harvest list on Jan. 1.
Asked to comment on whether it was unusual for an RTA to come into force prior to notification to the WTO, Razeen Sally, co-director of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy and an expert on the WTO and preferential trade agreements, said WTO rules on the matter were not strictly regulated.
“Relevant WTO rules [in GATT Article XXIV] are not that strong, but, more to the point, are weakly policed and often honored in the breach,” Sally said by e-mail. “So if what you say is the case [failure to notify of an RTA prior to its entry into force], it is not that unusual.”
Furthermore, Sally said that in its current form, the ECFA covered less than ordinary RTAs.
“As it stands, [the ECFA] probably does not pass muster with Article XXIV, as it is a very partial agreement, eliminating tariffs on much, much less than the 90 percent of goods trade that is the WTO standard,” he said.
The 539 categories of traded goods included in the early harvest list account for about 16 percent of China-bound exports.
“[The] ECFA might eventually meet this standard, but that is to be decided, since it is a work in progress,” Sally said.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) has said the English version would be sent to the WTO after the “supporting measures” of the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Committee (CSECC) were completed.
While the notification process usually takes more than a year, Shih said he hoped this could be accomplished as soon as possible.
The ECFA stipulates that once the trade pact takes effect, the two sides are to set up a cross-strait economic cooperation committee, and within six months initiate discussions on agreements on investment protection, commodity and service trades, as well as a dispute--resolution mechanism.
Taipei and Beijing formed the ad hoc CSECC earlier this month. Aside from negotiations, the purpose of the committee is to handle implementation, application and interpretation of the agreement or disputes resulting from it.
Under early harvest provisions, China has agreed to gradually lower tariffs on 539 categories of imports, with an estimated value of US$13.8 billion a year. Beijing also agreed to open 11 service categories and 18 farming and fishery categories to tariff reductions.
For their part, Chinese exporters will get a reciprocal deal on 267 items, with an estimated value of US$2.9 billion annually.
The administration has said the ECFA would help create 260,000 jobs and boost economic growth by as much as 1.7 percent, adding that the ECFA was crucial to ensure Taiwan was not marginalized following the entry into force of the ASEAN Plus Three (ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea).
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats