Under the trade in services agreement, originally negotiated and signed in June 2013 between Beijing and officials from Ma's ruling Kuomintang, China would open 80 services-related sectors to cross-strait investment and Taiwan would open 64. The Ma administration claims that the pact will provide a new and much larger market for Taiwanese services firms and would boost gross domestic product by nearly 1 percent annually. Further, the administration says the pact would pave the way for a more ambitious cross-strait trade-in-goods agreement with the mainland. Perhaps most important, Taipei believes the deal would bolster Taiwan's efforts to join regional free trade agreements such as the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is still in the works, or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Taiwan Stratfor From the start, the services agreement met stiff opposition from Democratic Progressive Party legislators.