President Ma Ying-jeou is calling on the opposition to stop boycotting discussions on cross-strait trade agreements. Ma’s remarks come as Taiwan’s biggest economic rival South Korea prepares to implement a free trade agreement with Taiwan’s biggest export market, Mainland China. Ma was speaking at a Kuomintang Central Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday about the impact the FTA will have on Taiwan.
During the meeting, Economics Minister Woody Duh proposed 4 strategies to deal with the challenge of the China-Korea FTA. Duh suggested focusing on extracting the best conditions possible from China during negotiations on cross-strait trade agreements. He also suggested working to ensure that Taiwan is given the same level of free trade with China as Korea, as well as building public support for free trade with China, and helping Taiwanese industry to upgrade itself.
Meanwhile, President Ma said that Taiwan is the world’s 19th largest trade country but it has concluded few FTAs with other countries. Ma said that four years ago, when Taiwan signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, Taiwan was a leader in the China market. Now, he said that it has been surpassed by trade rival South Korea.
Ma said 70% of Taiwan’s GDP is dependent on trade, so failure to keep up with the pace of trade liberalization will seriously affect employment and salaries in Taiwan.
The president said that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) knows how important FTAs are to Taiwan, but its members continue to boycott discussions on cross-strait trade agreements in the legislature. Ma called on the DPP to act in the interests of the nation instead.
"So I sincerely call on everyone to calm down, and to hurry and catch up," said Ma. "If we catch up fast, we will be hurt less. If we catch up fast, other countries will see that we won’t let ourselves fall behind. Taiwan needs to work hard to gain the position our nation should have. Let’s all please give the Republic of China a chance."
The president said he is still very concerned about the China-Korea FTA’s impact on Taiwan. That’s because it will impact jobs and salaries in cities and counties throughout the country.