President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen is also expected to announce food aid to Swaziland, the fourth and final stop on the president's tour of Africa.
PHOTO: CNA
Chen and his delegation were scheduled to arrive in Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, yesterday.
During his visit, the president is expected to make donations to help alleviate the country's food shortage, visit the Matsapha industrial zone and address Taiwanese business leaders.
Chen bid farewell to Malawi's President Bakili Muluzi around noon yesterday.
Swaziland's H.M. King Mswati III was expected to greet Chen at the airport with a military reception and performances by traditional dancers.
At Taiwan's embassy in Swaziland, Ambassador George Chang (
According to Chang, drought has led to a poor harvests for the past two years. In an estimated six months' time, roughly 150,000 people will face hunger and Swaziland is in urgent need of 188,000 tonnes of corn.
The country, which has applied for aid to the UN World Food Program, should be able to receive help before next year's harvest, Chang said.
In addition, the ambassador noted that an expansion project at a cargo harbor for the Matsapha industrial zone -- which was funded by Taiwan -- has been completed.
On May 17, King Mswati held an opening ceremony at the harbor to thank Taiwan for its support.
"Apart from thanking the Taiwanese government for its assistance, he also said the new facilities would increase the volume of export and import goods handled by the harbor and would strengthen the connection between Swaziland and other countries," Chang said. "This in turn will help attract foreign investors."
Prior to his departure from Malawi, Chen and Muluzi co-hosted a symposium on economic and trade relations between Taiwan and Malawi.
Chen said Taiwan would continue its cooperation with Malawi, which is still a developing country.
Taiwan was also once a poor nation, Chen said, but its people worked hard and diligently so that Taiwan could eventually stand on its own two feet and move forward. Chen said the purpose of his visit was to show his concern for the people of Taiwan's African allies and offer Taiwan's experience.
"I believe that if the people of Taiwan can do it, so can the people of Malawi," Chen said.
"As long as the people of the two nations unite, we will overcome poverty and eliminate disease."
The president noted that eight Taiwanese companies have invested in Malawi, creating more than 7,000 jobs.
The largest two companies are clothing factories.
The two heads of state then signed a joint communique. In his farewell statement, Chen said Taiwan would continue to support Malawi's efforts to improve the well-being of its people.
"I am confident that this visit constituted a big step forward in enhancing our cordial and cooperative relations," Chen said.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has