Hu calls for ECFA to be implemented "as soon as possible"

China’s President Hu Jintao said that China hopes the recently signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with Taiwan will be implemented "as soon as possible," state media reported. Hu, who made the comments in a meeting with the Kuomintang’s honorary chairman Wu Poh-hsiung, stressed that the ECFA, which reduces tariff on a wide range of petrochemical, textile, and other items, signaled a new stage of economic cooperation between Taiwan and the mainland. Some analysts viewed Hu’s symbolically important meeting with the KMT’s chairman as a further attempt by Beijing to bolster the KMT’s standing in Taiwan’s domestic political scene.