The Chinese delegation to the just-concluded second round of talks on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China headed home yesterday. China’s lead negotiator, Tang Wei (唐煒), declined to make any public comments prior to his departure.
Asked whether anything concrete had been achieved at the talks, Tang, head of the Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs under China’s Ministry of Commerce, only gave a polite “thank you all” in response.
To avoid pro-independence or anti-China protesters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the Chinese delegation arrived two hours before their flight was due to depart.
According to police authorities in Taoyuan, the Chinese delegation toured a tourist dairy farm in Yangmei Township (楊梅) yesterday morning before heading to the airport. For many of the Chinese negotiators this was reportedly their first visit to Taiwan.
The second round of ECFA talks began on Wednesday at Ta Shee Resort in Taoyuan County, and concluded at noon on Thursday, half a day earlier than originally planned.
At the end of the talks, Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) expressed optimism about the prospects for signing the trade pact with China in June as scheduled.
Lai said the significance of the just-concluded negotiations lay in ensuring that no sector will be unduly impacted by the ECFA deal. She also indicated that more effort would be made in future rounds of talks to show which sectors will benefit from the deal.
The talks give form to the government’s promise over the past year that the “early harvest” program — a list of items for which duties will be reduced or exempted immediately — will not include any agricultural items that Taiwan does not import from China at present. It will also not include industries that cater to conventional domestic demand and would therefore be sensitive to new inflows of Chinese goods, she said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS