Taiwan agri items to be included in trade pact with China

Eighteen agricultural and fishery items from Taiwan will be given preferential tariff treatment under a trade pact between Taiwan and China, said Council of Agriculture (COA) Minister Chen Wu-hsiung.

 

The trade pact is expected to be signed soon, Chen said.

 

The 18 items are now subject to average duties of 13.3% when entering China, Chen said, but after being included in the trade pact's "early harvest" list, the items should benefit from declining tariffs over the next three years until they are cut to zero.

 

If that happens, Chen said, Taiwanese exporters can save an estimated US$2 million in duties in three years under the pact, known as the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

 

Of the 18 listed items, 13 are farm produce and five are fishery products, Chen said. No livestock products have been included on the list in the first stage because of epidemic concerns, as Taiwan has yet to be removed from the list of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-stricken areas.

 

The COA minister is scheduled to brief the Legislative Yuan on the 18 items included in the "early harvest" list.

 

Meanwhile, Taiwanese and Chinese ECFA negotiators will meet in Taipei Thursday for a fourth round of formal talks on the content of the agreement, during which the two sides are expected to exchange their "early harvest" lists.

 

Negotiators from both sides will also hammer out technical details for a fifth meeting between Chiang Pin-kung, the chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), and his Chinese counterpart, Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS).

 

Chiang and Chen are expected to formally ink the much-anticipated ECFA during that meeting, to take place in China either later this month or in early July.