President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday brushed aside concerns about possible negative impacts on the local service industry of the recently signed cross-strait service trade agreement, and insisted the pact will facilitate the nation’s bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other regional free-trade agreements (FTAs).
“The service trade agreement prepares us [Taiwan] for deeper trade liberation. We have a competitive advantages in the service industry, and there is no need to worry about the pact and underestimate our strengths,” he said at a joint graduation ceremony for military academies in Greater Kaohsiung.
If ratified, the agreement, which was signed on Friday last week in Shanghai by representatives of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, would open up 64 sectors of Taiwan’s service industry to Chinese investment, while China would open 80 sectors to Taiwanese businesses.
Photo: CNA
Lawmakers reached an agreement on Tuesday to review the agreement item-by-item and vote separately on each of its articles and sector-specific commitments, contrary to the hope of the Ma administration that the legislature would vote on the agreement as a whole.
Lawmakers also agreed at Tuesday’s meeting that the pact cannot take effect without the legislature’s ratification.
Ma yesterday defended the government’s efforts to contribute to the nation’s trade liberalization, saying the newly signed pact requires both Taiwan and China to open the service market and that Taiwan’s competitive service industry can enhance its development in China by entering its vast consumer market.
Citing the example of the opening up of the film industry across the Taiwan Strait under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), Ma said the nation’s film industry has since generated revenues of more than NT$3 billion (US$99.8 million) in China, while the average box office sales for Chinese movies screened in Taiwan in the past three years was NT$24 million.
Ma also stressed the importance of joining the TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) for the nation to become a major global trading partner, and avoid lagging behind in pursuing regional economic integration.
“We are not yet qualified to join [the TPP and RCEP]. Taiwan is soon to sign economic cooperation pacts with Singapore and New Zealand, and these pacts are major prerequisites for us to join regional free-trade blocs,” he said.
Defending cross-strait exchanges in economic, cultural and other sectors, Ma said the government will continue to promote peace across the Taiwan Strait and seek to resolve disputes through diplomacy, even though China has not scaled back military deployments aimed at Taiwan.
Separately yesterday, Executive Yuan spokesperson Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said the government is set to begin a series of nationwide public hearings to explain the service trade agreement.
Ma, Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and Vice Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國), along with government officials in charge of the policy and regulatory authorities of concerned service sectors, are to attend events aimed at fostering public understanding of the trade pact via discussions and presentations, Cheng said.
In holding more than 100 public hearings around the nation, beginning this weekend, government officials are to explain how the agreement would benefit Taiwan and provide businesses opportunities in China, while laying out complementary measures to reduce the negative impacts of further market liberalization on local industries, the Executive Yuan said.
Information regarding the timing and locations of the events will be made available online soon to encourage as many people as possible to join the discussion, the Executive Yuan said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS