Taiwan and China are set to hold talks on a trade in goods agreement on Wednesday.
Chen Xing, an official from China’s Ministry of Commerce, arrived in Taipei on Tuesday for the talks.
Taiwanese local daily China Times reported on Tuesday that Taiwan has made two demands to China. The first is that the agreement be signed no later than six months after the inking of the China-Korea free trade agreement. That’s because Taiwan sees South Korea as its biggest export competitor. The second condition is to complete the consultative stage of the goods agreement regardless of whether the trade in services agreement passes a review in Taiwan’s legislature. The services pact has been stalled in the legislature since its signing in June 2013.
Important industries to be covered in the talks include automobiles, machine tools, petrochemicals and flat panels.
Talks on the goods agreement have been held off since October 2013. The government said it hopes negotiations will be scheduled on a regular basis after the resumption of talks this time.