TAIPEI, Jan 2: Taiwan will complete by the middle of this month a package lifting a ban on direct business deals with China and liberalizing imports from the mainland, a top official said on Wednesday.
“The two sides of the Taiwan Strait should strive to push for economic and trade normalization as new members of the WTO,” Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s top China policy maker, told reporters.
Taipei was expected to complete a package relaxing cross-strait commerce by January 15, including allowing direct deals between traders in both sides, widening imports from the mainland, and allowing Chinese business trips to the island, she said.
The government currently bans direct trading activities with the mainland, with deals having to go through companies in third territories, mainly Hong Kong.
However, relaxation of the ban on direct transportation of goods across the Taiwan Strait is not being considered at this stage.
Taiwan became the WTO’s 144th member on Tuesday, following the entry of rival China in December.
Tsai, chairman of the cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, said a list of goods allowed to be imported from the mainland would be released later this month.
Taiwan currently has strict restrictions on imports — especially in agricultural products — from the mainland.
The government also plans to allow indirect investment from China in Taiwan’s service industries before the end of June and direct investment would eventually be permitted, she added.
Other planned liberalizations include the opening of direct China-bound investment, as well as direct postal and telecommunications services between the two sides, Tsai added.
She said while the liberalizations would spur cross-strait commerce and widen Taiwan’s investment in China, they would also increase the island’s economic dependence on the mainland.
Despite current restrictions, Taiwanese investors have since then poured more than $70 billion into mainland China.
The island’s trade surplus with China totalled $20 billion last year out of total bilateral trade of $26.2 billion.
OIL, GAS PROJECT: Taiwan’s state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp. and leading Chinese oil firm China National Offshore Oil Co. will sign a deal this month to jointly explore oil and natural gas in the Taiwan Strait.
A report of United Evening News said here on Wednesday that CPC and CNOOC would form a 50:50 joint-venture to be based outside of Taiwan and China for the project, adding CNOOC chairman Wei Liucheng would fly to Taipei to ink the accord.
The cooperation involves seismic testing and drilling in the targetted area covering 15,400 square kilometers in the Tainan basin between south Taiwan and China’s Guangdong province, the paper said.
A CPC spokesman declined to comment on the report, saying: “We are not authorised to reveal any information about the deal.”
CPC and CNOOC conducted initial geophysical studies under a two-year contract signed in July 1996 and the study showed possible rich oil and natural gas reserves, the CPC official said.
But the cooperation was halted in late 1996 after the Taipei government introduced new controls on investment and trade links with China as tensions rose between the two rivals.—AFP