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Mainland, Taiwan weigh up benefits of economic pact
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-16 10:07
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After almost two decades on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan businessman Lee Rie-ho owns a well-known tea group that runs more than 1,000 outlets across the country.
However, his Ten Fu Group still only holds around 3 percent of the total mainland market. "The market here is amazingly large," says Lee, 75.
"Five cups of tea for each of the 1.3 billion population (on the mainland) could consume a whole year's production in Taiwan."
Before the Chinese New Year on February 14, 2010, Lee was among a group of Taiwan business people who met with President Hu Jintao on his inspection tour of Fujian Province, a major destination of Taiwan investments.
Besides conveying festival greetings, President Hu called the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), an economic pact under negotiation between the mainland and Taiwan, a "good deal" to promote cross-Strait economic cooperation and achieve mutual benefits.
Hu promised the mainland would take into full consideration the interests of people in Taiwan, especially farmers, during the meeting.
The ECFA, a priority in cross-Strait relations, is aimed at institutionalizing economic cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan and facilitating and regularizing economic and trade exchanges.
In December, leaders of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and the island's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) exchanged opinions on negotiating and signing the ECFA during their fourth round of talks in Taichung of Taiwan. They agreed to focus on the topic in their fifth round of talks this year.
Zhang Guanhua, deputy director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua that signing the ECFA would help promote structural adjustment of economies across the Strait and lay more solid foundations for the peaceful development of relations.
On Sunday, Premier Wen Jiabao said at a press conference that the mainland would take into account Taiwan's different market conditions and size of economy when negotiating the ECFA.
Wen also reaffirmed a promise that the mainland would let Taiwan "benefit more" from the agreement, through tariff reductions or early harvest programs.
Negotiating and signing the agreement is a complex process, but problems could always be solved as "we are brothers," Wen said.
Wen's remarks were headline news in many newspapers in Taiwan, which focused on the "benefit more" promise and the "we are brothers" sentiment.
