6 août 2010

ECFA Story : Et en avant pour la valse des FTA !

 [ Mise à jour le 8 Août 2010 ]



On va seulement parler des déclarations les plus "sérieuses".


FTA Taiwan-Thailand : Ben non.

L'article :
dit notamment :
  • "Thai exports to Taiwan already enjoy low to zero tariff treatment"
Est-ce que Taiwan chercherait à signer des FTA juste pour obtenir la reconnaissance politique ?


FTA Taiwan-Singapour : ça commence ... mal ?

Voici la bonne nouvelle :
Extrait :
  • "The Taipei Representative Office in Singapore and the Singapore Trade Office in Taipei issued a joint press release Thursday morning stating that "the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei) and Singapore, both members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), have agreed to explore the feasibility of an economic cooperation agreement between them.""
Commentaire de la "bonne nouvelle" :
Extraits :
  • "Although the agreement to be signed between Taiwan and Singapore may not be called an FTA to avoid offending China -- which insists such a pact can only be struck between two sovereign states, diplomatic officials said -- the accord will offer Taiwanese business people easier access to South Asian and Southeast Asian markets."
  • "As Singapore now only levies heavy tariffs on cigarettes, alcohol and other luxury goods, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung said Taiwan's manufacturing sector may not benefit much from the planned FTA with the Southeast Asian city-state."
  • "Lin said local financial service providers and the transportation sector will benefit most by securing better market access terms under an FTA with Singapore."
  • "Singapore may ask Taiwan to exempt tariffs on its petrochemical, machinery and electronics products, Lin said, adding that as Taiwan's duty rate on petrochemicals is only 2 percent, tariff cuts will not have a great impact on local producers."
Et le DPP n'est pas content de voir son travail en passe d'être récupéré :
  • "Liberty Times: DPP spokesman Tsai Chi-chang said Taiwan and Singapore were already nearing the satge of signing an FTA back in 2004 when the DPP was in power. "The deal was later dropped mainly because of China's obstruction," Tsai contended, adding that the Ma administration should explain whether the new round of Taiwan-Singapore FTA negotations would be conducted under the premise of Beijing's consent."
  • ""If the talks would be held with the Ma adminsitration agreeing to Beijing's 'one China' principle, Taiwan's sovereign status would be compromised," Tsai claimed. (Aug. 5, 2010)."
Voici maintenant la mauvaise nouvelle :
qui dit ceci :
  • "Singapore should recognize China's sovereignty over Taiwan even as the Southeast Asian country is preparing to sign an economic agreement, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said yesterday."
  • ""We hope Singapore continues to observe the principle that there's only one China," Xinhua reported, citing the Chinese foreign ministry's spokeswoman Jiang Yu."
Alors que va faire Singapour ?
On a pu lire aussi ce titre plutôt étonnant :
Extrait :
  • In the wake of improved cross-strait relations following President Ma Ying-jeou's inauguration in May 2008, China has said that it will deal with issues related to Taiwan's pursuit of FTAs in a pragmatic and reasonable way.
Et le "journal du peuple" qui parle :
Extrait :
  • "Beijing urged Singapore on Thursday to prudently handle its planned talks with Taiwan on the feasibility of signing an economic agreement."
  • ""Our stance on economic and trade activities between foreign countries and Taiwan is consistent and clear," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "We hope relevant countries continue adhering to the one-China policy and to prudently handle related issues.""
  • ""We believe Singapore will adhere to the one-China policy, and properly handle its economic and trade relations with Taiwan accordingly," said a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office."
  • "Wu Nengyuan, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences, said it is very important for Taiwan and the mainland to hold negotiations and discuss "proper and reasonable arrangements" for the island's participation in activities involving international organizations. "Taiwan should adhere to the one-China policy, or it will hurt the good momentum of development of cross-Straits relations," he said."
  • "Taiwan and Singapore have long mulled the possibility of inking a free trade deal. Talks began after then Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2000. But Chen's insistence on negotiating a deal under the name "Taiwan" or "Republic of China" derailed the talks in 2003, the Singapore-based Straits Times reported."

Enfin, l'article synthétique du Taipei Times :
Extraits - Ah ! pardon, il ne faut pas dire FTA, mais "economic cooperation agreement" :
  • Asked why the proposed pact was called an economic cooperation agreement and not an FTA, Lo said trade agreements signed under the WTO framework have different names and not all are called FTAs.
  • As Singapore accounts for “less than 1 percent” of Taiwan's annual trade volume, Julian Kuo (郭正亮), the DPP’s ECFA response team spokesperson, said that even if the deal were signed, its contribution would be insignificant.
  • Ministry of Economic Affairs figures show that Singapore accounted for 3.55 percent of Taiwan's external trade last year, making it the nation's sixth-largest trading partner.
  • China, meanwhile, reacted carefully to the news yesterday.
  • Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) called on “relevant countries” to handle the issue with “caution.”
  • China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in a brief and characteristically opaque statement carried by Xinhua news agency, said: “We believe Singapore will continue to stick to the one China policy, and thus properly handle economic and trade relations with Taiwan.”

Et celui-ci encore, de Taiwan News, qui dit :
  • "The opposition Democratic Progressive Party said, however, that even if Taiwan and Singapore sign a trade deal, the island is unlikely to enjoy substantial benefits since about 99 percent of its top 100 products sold to the city state are given tariff-free treatment, citing trade figures in 2006."
  • "The MOEA countered by arguing that negotiations with Singapore will focus on the service sector, and that the two countries are also expected to talk about investment, agricultural cooperation and joint efforts to penetrate the regional market. The ministry said that as long as the trade deal with Singapore is done, other trading partners could be more willing to ink similar trade agreements with Taiwan. In 2009, Singapore accounted for 4.23 percent of Taiwan's total exports, while Vietnam took 2.94 percent and Indonesia made up 1.58 percent."
"agricultural cooperation" avec Singapour : c'est quand même étonnant, non ?


Au total, le "FTA" (ou autre accord) signé avec Singapour a surtout une valeur symbolique et politique : il montrerait que Taiwan sort de son impasse diplomatique, et permettrait de montrer à d'autres états (de l'ASEAN surtout) qu'il est possible de signer des accords économiques avec Taiwan sans recevoir les foudres de la Chine après.

Le choix de Singapour est hautement symbolique sur un point : s'il y a un état indépendant et liberaliste qui a des relations étroites avec la Chine, c'est bien Singapour. D'ici à ce que ça soit la Chine elle-même qui ait suggéré une avancée dans ce sens, il n'y a qu'un pas !


Voici encore un article assez perspicace et synthétique sur le sujet :

Economic Daily News: New challenges in Taiwan-Singapore FTA talks, 2010/08/09, By Sofia Wu

L'article approfondit aussi certains points :
  • One of the primary goals in striking the ECFA deal is to protect Taiwan from being marginalized in the face of the growing waves of regional economic integration, but whether Taiwan can sign FTA-like accords with its major trading partners will be a major yardstick to gauge the value of the ECFA.
  • The start of Taiwan-Singapore trade talks, however, also pose challenges for Taiwan. For one thing, Taiwan must wait and see whether China will only allow Taiwan to negotiate similar economic deals with the eight countries or areas that have already signed FTAs or FTA-like deals with Beijing -- Hong Kong, Macao, Chile, Singapore, Pakistan, New Zealand, Peru and Costa Rica.
  • Singapore accounts for a mere 3.2 percent of Taiwan's overall foreign trade and if Taiwan wants to be included in the global economic system, it needs to conclude FTAs with its key trading partners, such as the U.S., Japan, the European Union, South Korea and other ASEAN member states in addition to Singapore.
  • Another challenge lies in the fact that Singapore is a free trade port that offers tariff-free treatment for 99 percent of goods. Multinational business groups also face fewer barriers to launching new ventures or service footholds there. In FTA talks, Taiwan will have to offer much more preferential treatment to Singapore than vice-versa. Is Taiwan suitably prepared to cope with such market-opening pressure?

FTA China-ROK : ça y est, ça va commencer.

Extraits :
  • "Yu Woo-ik, South Korea's ambassador to China, told [...] that the two Asian nations "are expected to initiate official FTA talks in 2011", after a four-year feasibility study among governments, industrial associations and academies from the two countries was wrapped up recently."
  • "The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed by the Chinese mainland and Taiwan in June also gave impetus to progress on the China-South Korea negotiations, analysts said. Under the ECFA, the Chinese mainland and Taiwan will remove tariffs on close to 1,000 categories of goods to each other."
  • "The ECFA will stimulate South Korea to accelerate the process of the FTA negotiations with Beijing, as Taiwan is a major competitor with South Korea in areas such as electronics and chemicals, according to Nomura International. The trade agreement across the Taiwan Straits will also threaten exporters from South Korea, which have relied much on the Chinese market, analysts said. Yu admitted that South Korea has "a bit of concern" over the ECFA. He also said that the ECFA could enhance cross-Straits economic cooperation. From the long-term perspective, China and South Korea should sign an FTA "to avoid unfair trade cooperation", Yu said."
  • "China is South Korea's largest trade partner, followed by the United States. Last year, China-South Korea trade accounted for 21 percent of South Korea's foreign trade."
  • "In South Korea, industrial groups from the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors are deeply concerned that the local industries will be hurt when the market is open to each other under the FTA framework, Yu said."

L'une des premières conséquences de l'ECFA, c'est la relance du FTA de la Chine avec la Corée du Sud. C'est une très bonne opération pour la Chine, au niveau économique comme au niveau politique.



Et Taiwan-Japan ? :


Extraits :
  • [...] Taiwan has started talks with Singapore on an economic cooperation agreement, as well as the current negotiations with Japan on a bilateral investment guarantee agreement, according to the official.
  • [...] Japan has finally agreed to negotiate with Taiwan on such an agreement. 


Et à part les FTA et assimilés, quoi d'autre ? : Le Tourisme médical à Taiwan, bien sûr ! :
Extraits :
  • "The low prices and expertise are attracting many people from China to go to Taiwan to have surgery."
  • "[...] attracting wealthy Chinese with slogans such as “Mommy comes to Taiwan, and returns looking like your sister.”"

Quatre fois le mot "surgery" dans l'article ! [ dont deux fois "cosmetic surgery", il est vrai ].

Je me demande si le slogan ne pourrait pas être : amener des organes, et on s'occupe de vous les greffer !

Bah! je me fais sans doute des idées !



Mais j'allais oublier quelque chose de chaud-chaud, ces derniers jours :


Le CTSP : "situé à Taichung, [...] rassemble, sur 500 hectares, les usines de fabrication de dernière génération des principaux acteurs de la haute technologie. Depuis son ouverture en juillet 2003, près de 40 milliards d’euros d'investissements ont été annoncés par les entreprises s'implantant dans le parc, faisant ainsi de CTSP un centre vital pour le développement des industries de l'optoélectronique et des semi-conducteurs." (du site de Air Liquide)

  • The Central Taiwan Science Park includes sites at Taichung, Huwei (Yunlin County), and Houli. A Provision Office was established in October 2003 to recruit companies and develop the park. It bears the heavy responsibility of promoting industrial and economic revival in central Taiwan. Building on central Taiwan's existing precision machinery industry, the park will create a high-tech industry cluster specializing in nano-precision machinery, nanomaterials, the aerospace industry, biotechnology, telecommunications, and optoelectronics. By the end of 2005, the park had approved 77 companies bringing in investments of USD 41.34 billion.

Et voici le gros problème :
Extraits :
  • "Injunctions from two administrative courts on the development of the Houli and the Erlin branches of the Central Taiwan Science Park caused alarm Thursday among local industries operating in the country's science parks. Shen Kuo-rung, vice president of the Association of Industries in Science Parks, told a news conference at the Hsinchu Science Park that the rulings handed down by the Taiwan High Administrative Court and the Supreme Administrative Court have caused panic among local industries and have cast a shroud of uncertainty over Taiwan's investment environment."
  • "On July 13, the Taiwan High Administrative Court ordered the Central Taiwan Science Park to suspend its expropriation of land for its Erlin facility in Changhua County until problems relating to an environmental impact assessment have been sorted out. The same court ordered Aug. 2 the suspension of all development work in the Central Science Park's Houli branch in Miaoli County on the grounds that the it's environmental impact assessment had already been annulled by the Supreme Administrative Court in January."
  • "The Central Taiwan Science Park Administration decided two days earlier to appeal the Taiwan High Administrative's Aug. 2 ruling, but the ruling will hold unless and until it is overruled by the Supreme Administrative Court. This means that the companies already operating in the Houli park have to stop production and endure the loss entailed by the suspension. Among the companies hard-hit is the TFT-LCD giant AU Optronics (AUO) , whose two factories in the Houli park, built at a cost of NT$200 billion (US$6.28 billion) , are almost complete and were preparing to recruit workers early next year. The company's plan to build two 11th-generation TFT-LCD factories in the Erlin park are also now in limbo because of the court's July 13 suspension order."
D'où une sacrée polémique (ou panique ?), et un blocage potentiel des investissements sur l'ile dans le domaine d'activités du CTSP :
Extraits :
  • "Both the government and industry players have been shocked by the injunction, which has come as a particularly heavy blow to AU Optronics (AUO), whose NT$200 billion project to build two LCD panel plants at the Chihsing site is now in limbo."
  • "A Green Party delegation that will attend an upcoming environmental forum in Berlin said they will seek international support for their campaign to protect the land from economic exploitation by rogue enterprises."
Et l'opposition accuse le gouvernement :
Extraits :
  • The National Science Council announced a suspension on expansion work on the area Monday after a court injunction in that sense following residents’ criticism of the environmental impact assessment. The NSC decision led to criticism from businesses investing in the park.
  • The Taipei High Administrative Court decided to scrap the environmental impact assessment for the third phase of the Central Taiwan Science Park, while the NSC decided to stop recruiting investors for the fourth phase, based in Erlin, Changhua County, after some local residents refused to give up their land.
  • DPP legislator Chen Ting-fei said it was Shen’s failure to follow regular EPA practices which had now led to businesses losing faith in the government. The fiasco at the science park would influence the economy and cost the country investment and jobs, she said. Ruling Kuomintang lawmaker Chung Shao-ho said the government should have cleared up environmental problems before starting the development of the science park, and not when the project was already half complete. His colleague Hsiao Ching-tien said the government should show more resolve in facing a small group of protesters, otherwise it would affect Taiwan’s image with domestic and international investors.
C'est une histoire qui tombe d'autant plus mal que le gouvernement parle justement d'attirer les investissements étrangers sur l'ile, voire de faire revenir les entreprises taiwanaises qui sont délocalisées en Chine. Une sacré histoire !


Ensuite : où en sont les relations économiques entre Taiwan et USA ?
Voici un article qui fait le point :

Extraits :
  • "The Obama Administration is showing a renewed vigor in deepening America’s roots in Asia. This year, it has made a commitment to get the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement through Congress, raised the priority for a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and decided to seek participation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s East Asia Summit."
  • "The U.S.-Taiwan talks on the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, or TIFA, have lapsed for three years. [...] In Taipei, authorities were unable to implement an agreement on U.S. beef trade, leaving American exporters unhappy and U.S. officials worried about setting a bad precedent. As a result, U.S.-Taiwan TIFA talks have fallen by the wayside."
  • "[...] restarting TIFA talks will also advance broader U.S. interests in Asia. Taiwan is the tenth largest trading partner of the U.S., despite a population of just 23 million. U.S. firms also have nearly $20 billion invested in Taiwan, and Taiwanese businesses have $4.2 billion in the U.S. There is great potential for more: So far this year our exports to Taiwan are up 68% through May compared to the same period last year, and we exported $18.5 billion even in the depths of the crisis last year."
  • But Taiwan is now at a turning point, with much of its focus on Asia. On June 29 it signed an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, or ECFA, with China, which will be followed by a free-trade deal. Once implemented, that agreement will increase the share of China-bound Taiwanese exports to 60%, and lift Taiwan’s overall economic growth significantly.
  • "This year China has, in addition to signing the framework agreement with Taiwan, implemented a free-trade agreement with Asean, and committed to launch free-trade negotiations with Korea. President Obama has taken steps to keep pace on the Asean and Korea trade fronts, which are essential for meeting his goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years. Restarting our TIFA dialogue with Taiwan would be a natural next step to demonstrate the continued economic relevance of the U.S. in Asia."
Enfin un article discutant du "Made in Taiwan" et du phénomène "hatai" :

Taiwan must adapt to the post-ECFA era, By Bert Lim 林建山, Saturday, Aug 07,TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER, Taipei Times

Extraits :
  • A report in a Chinese-language newspaper a few days ago suggested that fans of Taiwan, hatai, are becoming as popular as South Korea fans, hahan, in the Asian market and even overtaking them.
  • Taiwan’s reputation has improved significantly in recent years as a result of the sheer quality of the technology and products it makes. This has given rise to the so-called hatai phenomenon, basically a liking of all things Taiwanese, which has given a boost to Taiwanese branded goods and services. The global reputation and status of “Made in Taiwan” (MIT) labeling is now roughly comparable to that of Japanese-made goods about 15 years ago.