TAIPEI: The issue of press exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits will not be on the agenda of the upcoming fourth round of cross-Straits talks, but Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) officials said yesterday that such discussions will be started when the time is ripe.

The fourth round of talks between SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung and his mainland counterpart Chen Yunlin, president of the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), is slated to take place in the central Taiwan city of Taichung sometime in the second half of December.

According to the SEF - the semi-official intermediary body founded to deal with cross-Straits exchanges in the absence of official links - Chiang has been authorized by the Mainland Affairs Council to talk about four major issues: a safety check and quality certification system for agricultural products; moves to prevent double taxation; cooperation on fishery manpower affairs; and cooperation on the promotion of standard product quality checking and certification.

All of these are problems that have emerged in the course of the increasingly close trade and economic exchanges between the two sides, SEF officials said.

In the future and at an appropriate time, the two sides will also consider talks on the formation of a two-way investment guarantee agreement and a currency clearing mechanism, intellectual property rights protection, the establishment of a mechanism to handle economic and trade disputes, and cooperation and exchanges in the fields of media, culture and education, they added.

Addressing the issue of a widely anticipated proposed economic cooperation framework agreement with the mainland, the officials said Chiang and Chen might bring the topic up during the Taichung talks, but will not sign an agreement at that time.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 10/22/2009 page2)