6th ECC meeting wraps up in Beijing

2014-08-07

The sixth round of the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Committee meeting wrapped up Aug. 5 in Beijing, with Taiwan and mainland China exchanging ideas on a raft of trade cooperation issues.

Led by Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Cho Shih-chao and his mainland Chinese counterpart Gao Yan, representatives focused on reviewing implementation results of the Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).

According to the MOEA, the latest statistics show tariff concessions of Taiwan’s merchandise exports under the ECFA early harvest scheme topped US$300 million for the first six months of the year, with the total US$1.8 billion since January 2011. Savings for mainland China’s exporters were US$41 million and US$180 million, respectively.

Taipei and Beijing agreed to continue fast-tracking implementation of the cross-strait investment protection agreement. They will concentrate on dispute settlement, including facilitating the launch of five designated dispute settlement bodies and working on respective complementary measures.

In particular, Taiwan and mainland China reached consensus on a five-stage tariff concession scheme for trade in goods, and will start the next round of agreement negotiations later this month.

The delegates also remained committed to boosting industrial collaboration through six working groups in the automobile, cold chain logistics, display panel, light-emitting diode, textile and wireless city sectors. They will set up a new group for the medicine sector during the next ECC round.

Other areas of progress include further promoting customs cooperation to facilitate bilateral trade, enhancing exchanges in small and medium enterprise policymaking and reciprocal establishment of more business association offices.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=220351&CtNode=413)