TAIPEI -- Taiwanese media have placed high hopes on Thursday's talks between chief negotiators from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan in Taipei, during which two agreements on investment protection and customs cooperation are expected to be signed.
In an editorial on Tuesday, Taiwan's China Times daily newspaper termed the cross-Strait agreement on investment protection "another milestone" in terms of the "institutionalization" of cross-Strait economic ties, following the signing of the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2010.
The agreement, expected to be signed Thursday afternoon by Chen Yunlin, president of the Chinese mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), and his Taiwanese counterpart Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), will further streamline the process of settling disputes arising from cross-Strait investments and offer more protection for investors' legitimate rights and interests, Chiang said in a news briefing Monday.
Founded in 1991 and 1990, respectively, the ARATS and SEF are authorized by the mainland and Taiwan to handle cross-Strait affairs. Cross-Strait ties have increasingly improved since 2008, when talks between the heads of the ARATS and SEF resumed and led to the signing of a series of agreements on boosting cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges.
"We hope that in the future quicker efforts will be made to proceed with similar negotiations that will have profound effects on the economic and financial sectors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (in a good way)," the article said.
What's more important than the agreements being signed are the follow-up negotiations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, upon which people have pinned hopes for common development of both sides of the Strait, it added.
The United Daily News, one of the island's major newspapers, on Tuesday also offered major pages for the Chen-Chiang meeting.
Stressing the significance of the expected cross-Strait agreement on investment protection and customs cooperation, an editorial in the daily said the pact will help improve the protection of Taiwanese businesspeople on the mainland, facilitate mainlanders' investment in Taiwan and promote cross-Strait trade.
