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TAIPEI: Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou said on Tuesday that the island needs a proposed trade pact with China despite warnings that Taipei would become more reliant on its powerful neighbour.
Ma said he hopes to build the island into an Asia-Pacific investment hub hosting the regional headquarters of local and multinational businesses.
"The odds of reaching the goals would increase once the agreement is signed," Ma said during a rare press conference aimed at boosting support for the controversial pact.
The Economic Cooperation and Framework Agreement (ECFA) would create 260,000 jobs and gross domestic product would rise by up to 1.7 percentage points, Ma said, citing the semi-official Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research.
And a report released last year by the Council of Labour Affairs warned around 47,000 Taiwanese workers will lose their jobs if the pact is not signed.
However, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, which favours independence from China, fears the ECFA will increase Taiwan's reliance on China and imperil its de facto separate status.
But Ma said growing reliance on Beijing economically is a global trend and must not seen as an excuse to oppose the pact.
"This is something expected as China has emerged as the global factory and the world's second biggest economy," he said.
Twenty-four percent of Taiwan's overseas sales went to China in 2000, but last year that figure rose to 41 percent, government figures showed.
Ma, from the China friendly Kuomintang party, also tried to dismiss fears that the agreement would pave way for the eventual reunification of China.
"In the agreement no political wording, like 'one country, two systems' ... would be used," he said, referring to the system Beijing has used to rule Hong Kong since 1997, a conciliatory offer that has been flatly rejected by Taipei.
The first round of ECFA talks was held in Beijing last month, to be followed by a new round in Taipei expected in March.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war but Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. - AFP/de
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