SEF chairman sets goal to sign ECFA by June

TAIPEI, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), said Friday the SEF hoped to see the signing of a long-awaited cross-Strait economic pact by the end of June.

"We hope to sign the pact as soon as possible and will work to achieve that by the end of June," he said in a meeting in Taipei with a trade delegation from the mainland municipality Tianjin.

He said the two-day expert-level talks on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which ended on Thursday in Taipei, had made progress and future negotiations would focus on details of the pact.

Negotiators from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan reached "a series of agreements" in talks on the ECFA, which is intended to boost cross-Strait economic ties, according to a statement released Thursday after the meeting.

The two sides reached an agreement on the "early harvest program," in which they pledged to fully consider each other's most urgent and necessary issues when deciding the list of products and services in the program.

Chiang said it would take a while to finalize the list of the "early harvest program" and the text of the pact in future negotiations.