The government is planning to set up a commission to facilitate the implementation of the landmark cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement, Huang Chih-peng, Taiwan’s chief ECFA negotiator, said July 12.
Huang, who is director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said the trade pact will take effect in September if it is passed by the Legislature in August. It has already passed to second reading.
According to Huang, the MOEA is deliberating the structure of the cross-strait economic cooperation commission, which is scheduled to begin operating as soon as the trade pact comes into force.
In contrast, the tariff and market concessions for items on the early harvest list will take effect as scheduled Jan. 1, 2011, to streamline administrative procedures, he noted, as tariffs are set to be gradually reduced in three stages over two years.
The commission will serve as a communications platform to assist future cross-strait negotiations on agreements on investment protection, dispute settlement and trades in goods and services, Huang said.
Members of the committee will be representatives from related bureaus and ministries, led by a senior economic official at the deputy-minister or bureau-chief level, he said.
In addition, Huang said the two sides have been independently drafting English versions of the trade agreement, which they will exchange for confirmation with their Chinese versions. They will separately submit the accord to the World Trade Organization, at the same time informing it that in any dispute the Chinese text will prevail.
In related news, in response to a recent news report suggesting the trade concessions Taiwan received through the ECFA are inferior to those of the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement between Hong Kong and the mainland, the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council said to compare the two pacts is to lower Taiwan’s status.
“The CEPA . . . is designed to comply with mainland’s ‘one country, two systems’ principle,” the MAC said in an official news release.
Unlike the ECFA, the preface of which clearly states that the pact is concluded under the principle of “mutual benefit,” the joint committee specified in the CEPA represents a superior-subordinate relationship between the central and local governments, the MAC noted.
In addition, as the ECFA was signed under WTO principles, Taiwan is able to freely enter into free trade agreements with other economies, while the CEPA, in effect, “authorizes” the mainland to involve itself in Hong Kong’s attempts to sign other FTAs, since the agreement is dedicated to “furthering the prosperity and development” of both regions, the MAC added.
Therefore, to draw parallels between the ECFA and CEPA is inappropriate and in fact to denigrate Taiwan’s sovereignty, the MAC concluded. (THN)
Write to Audrey Wang at audrey@mail.gio.gov.tw