Taiwan inks three pacts with China to strengthen cooperation (update)
ROC Central News Agency
2009/04/26 22:36:00
(Add Chiang's statement on Taiwan's proposed trade pact with China) Nanjing, China, April 26 (CNA) Taiwan and China signed three pacts and one joint statement here Sunday through their top negotiators, with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the two former civil war rivals.
During the third round of negotiation between the two sides, Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) , and Chen Yunlin, president of Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, inked the documents on behalf of Taiwan and China, respectively.
Notable among the three pacts was one aimed at increasing the current 108 direct passenger charter flights per week between the two sides to 270.
Some of these flights would be regular scheduled flights that would take off and land at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Kaohsiung airport.
China agreed to open six more destinations for such flights, in addition to the current 21 cities.
The number of cargo flights, which now stands at 30 per month, will be increased to 112.
In order to accommodate the increased number of flights, the two sides agreed to set up a new southern route through the flight information region between Taipei and Guangzhou, and a new northern route through the flight information region between Taipei and Shanghai.
Taiwan had proposed that the number of flights be increased to 300 per week because the load factor of the charter flights had increased from 70.3 percent when they were launched on Dec. 15, 2008 to 90.6 percent early this month.
In the second pact, both sides agreed to work together to maintain financial stability. They agreed to cooperate on the supervision of financial and monetary management and to begin negotiations on access to their respective markets by banks, stock brokers and futures companies on each side.
Analysts believe this agreement will pave the way for a memorandum of understanding on financial regulatory cooperation between Taiwan and China, which will in turn lead to the opening of their markets to each other's financial institutions.
The third pact concerned cooperation in fighting crime, with both sides agreeing to help each other in serving judicial documents, and probing and collecting evidence, and to confirm each other's civil judgments and arbitration awards. Most significantly, the two sides agreed to repatriate criminals and suspected criminals. This aspect of the pact was hailed as a milestone because China has long been considered a haven for Taiwan criminals, mainly because of the absence of a repatriation agreement.
In the joint statement on investment, Taiwan said it would sincerely welcome Chinese investment, and promised to formulate regulations to facilitate this process.
On its part, China agreed to support private investment in Taiwan, and encouraged eligible Chinese enterprises to make fact-finding tours of Taiwan to explore investment opportunities there.
The negotiations began Sunday morning and continued into the afternoon.
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the execution of six previous pacts between them, and explored the possibility of entering into a trade agreement.
Taiwan's top negotiator Chiang Pin-kung said after the meeting that his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin didn't rule out the possibility for talks on the proposed trade agreement. However Chiang quoted Chen as saying that bilateral economical exchanges should begin from easy things such as those issues raised in previous bilateral negotiations but had not yet been addressed.
Taipei authorities are eager to talk with China on such a pact out of concerns that it might be excluded from a regional economic bloc to be formed between China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Taiwan's opposition parties, notably the Democratic Progressive Party, have opposed this idea, claiming that it will compromise the country's sovereignty.
Sunday's meeting also decided the next round negotiations should take place the second half of this year in Taiwan.
Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou hailed the results of the meeting between Chiang and Chen, during on a visit to Taiwan's southern county of Pingdong Sunday afternoon.
He said although Beijing did not agree to the full number of cross-strait flights proposed by Taipei, and the number of flights between some destinations would be inadequate,"these issues will be addressed in future negotiations." (By Maubo Chang) enditem /pc
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