Taiwan’s economics minister Woody Duh says China supports efforts to conclude ongoing negotiations over a cross-strait trade in goods agreement, but is concerned about uncertainties created by Taiwan’s legislature.
Duh said on Saturday that during an hour-long meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Beijing, Chinese commerce minister Gao Hucheng promised to speed up trade talks with Taiwan.
Taiwan and China signed a trade in services agreement in June last year. However, with growing public demand for more transparency in the negotiation and signing of cross-strait agreements, the legislature decided to review the trade in services agreement before ratifying it. The review of the agreement has since stalled.
Duh said he suggested to Gao that Taiwan and China should first work on technical issues in their ongoing talks on the trade-in-goods agreement.