Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou Friday urged the public to support the signing of an economic cooperation pact with China before it is too late.

"If we don't do it today, we will regret it tomorrow," he said in an interview with local cable news network ERA TV.

He said Taiwan would stand to lose 114,000 jobs after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN countries set up a free trade zone with China, Japan and South Korea as early as 2010.

Taiwan, which is not an ASEAN member, would be outcompeted and totally marginalized if the island was not able to sign a pact similar to a free trade agreement China, he said.

Taiwan has been left out from ASEAN in their free trade zone talks because the ASEAN countries recognise Beijing rather than Taipei diplomatically.

Beijing has considered the island a breakaway province that must be brought back to its fold, if necessary by force. The two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949. But bilateral relations have been warming since Ma, of the China-friendly Nationalist Party, took office in May and adopted a policy to engage Beijing.

Ma said Taiwan's petrochemical, electronic components, textile and tool machine industries would lose their competition if they have to pay 6.5 per cent in tariffs for their exports to China, while other ASEAN members and Japan as well as South Korea are tariff-free.

His appeal came after pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party vowed to boycott the government's 2009 budget if the Ma government attempted to sign any free trade or economic cooperation pact with China.

The pro-independence camp in Taiwan has feared that once Taiwan signed the agreement with Beijing, it would bring forth economic integration and eventual political integration with China. (dpa)