Taiwan and China signed on December 22, 2009 the agreements on cross-strait fishing crew
cooperation and agricultural products quarantine inspection, Minister Chen Wu-hsiung of the
Council of Agriculture (COA) was delighted at the positive development, saying that the two
sides can create more opportunities for concrete cooperation based on trasparency and mutual
trust through the two agreements. He was convinced that signing the two pacts will also bring
long-term benefits to domestic agriculture and fishery industry, and agricultural agencies will
intensify their efforts to fully implement the agreements.

The agreements were signed by Dr. Pin-kung Chiang, chairman of the Taiwan Straits Exchange
Foundation (SEF), and his counterpart Mr. Yunlin Chen, president of the Association for
Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), in Taichung City, central Taiwan.

The COA said the Agreement on Cross-Strait Fishing Crew Cooperation was signed after several
rounds of negotiations to solve the disputes between labor and management over the past years and
the problem of managing maniland fishing crew Taiwan shipowners hired abroad. The best part of
the agreement is Taiwan shipowners can now employ mainland fishing crew of higher quality who can
adapt easily to operations on the sea, and both Taiwan shipowners and mainland fishing crew have
their respective appeal channels to deal with disputes between labor and management. Because the
shipowners' broker agencies will be approved by the government in Taipei with clear regulations on
fishing crew wages and employment channels, cross-strait fishing crew cooperation in the future
will be developed systematically and normally.

In addition, the Agreement on Agricultural Products Quarantine Inspection is aimed at enhancing
exchanges of farm produce quarantine inspection based on pragmatic scientific foundation and the
principles of mutual trust and mutual benefit. The agreement covers setting up mechanism for
quarantine inspection exchanges, enhancing inquriy about information on quarantine inspections,
timely reporting significant emergencies and incidents involving product safety, regularly
reporting disqualified agricultural products, dealing with significant emergencies in coordination
with each other, setting up system of tracking agricultural product safety management, and carrying
out convenient and rapid quarantine inspection measures through investigation visits.

Following the signing of the two agreements which are vital to the interests of Taiwan farmers and
fishermen, the COA formally established the channel for systemized communications with China under
the guidance of the two agreements, noted the COA.