Deputy trade ministers from Taiwan and the mainland agreed to set up work groups to address issues arising from the Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement, a trade pact signed last year by the two sides.
The news was announced yesterday at the end of the first meeting of the Economic Co-operation Committee (ECC), set up as a communications platform between Taipei and Beijing after the pact in June.
Yesterday's meeting, in Zhongli (formerly Chungli), Taiwan, was the first direct talk between officials from the two sides. Francis Liang Kuo-hsin, Taiwanese economic affairs vice-minister, spent the day with his mainland counterpart, Jiang Zengwei , vice-minister of commerce. Jiang is heading a 36-member delegation of mainland officials.
The ECC's 'early-harvest programme', launched last month, lists products for tariff cuts.
Liang, heading a 40-member delegation of officials from Taiwan, said the six work groups to be set up would deal with issues of trade in goods and services, dispute settlement, investment, and industrial and customs co-operation.
'Our two sides have also reached consensus on fully examining the results of the early-harvest programme and further promoting it to achieve better effect,' Liang said.
Liang said the work groups would talk on issues such as investment protection before March 12, when a session on agreements following up the trade pact begins. The sides agreed the next ECC meeting would be held in the second half of this year.