Taipei – The Taiwanese government has decided to delay informal trade talks with the mainland this week. Officially, the reason for the move is pending budget discussions in parliament, said Huang Chih-peng, director of Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade and the head of the island's delegation.
“The government budget is under review in parliament, so we decided to postpone the discussions until the end of this month,” Huang said.
Local media have reported that the upcoming talks, the fourth of their kind, are expected to set a timetable for formal discussions.
Taiwan's mainland-friendly administration hopes the negotiations will lead to a trade agreement, which it says could lift the island's economic growth by one percentage point.
Whilst the ruling Kuomintang aims for a signed agreement early next year, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, which favours independence from China, has warned the pact could imperil the island's separate status (pictured).
Now a trade pact with China has become the major issue for debate on the island, where unemployment looms large.
During Taiwan's boom years from the 1960s to the 1990s, unemployment was seldom on the agenda, but now it has emerged as a decisive political issue. So far this year, the jobless rate in the crisis-battered economy has been 5.82 per cent, nearly double the 2.99 per cent recorded as late as 2000.
The planned pact is expected to create 350,000 new jobs, especially in chemicals, machinery and textiles, while the thorns are more than 80,000 jobs at risk in industries such as tiles and home electronics.
"It's like a rose," Premier Wu Den-yih said. "Optimists see the flower, while pessimists see the thorns. The government has to look at both the flower and the thorns."
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