Ministry denies Japan aiding Taiwan

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday denied a report that said Taiwan was receiving financial aid from Japan.

"As far as MOFA is concerned, Taiwan does not receive any financial aid from Japan," ministry spokeswoman Katharine Chang (張小月) told the Taipei Times when asked to confirm the report.

Quoting the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, the CNA report said that Japan will cease all financial aid to Taiwan beginning next year, on the grounds that Taiwan is now a financially developed country.

The report said the Japanese government began financial aid programs to Taiwan in 1965 when the two countries still maintained formal diplomatic relations.

"I think the report needs more clarification and information," Chang said, adding that, while bilateral cooperation projects do exist from time to time between Taiwan and Japan, "to the best of our knowledge, Taiwan does not receive financial aid from Japan."

Taiwan is a "donor country," Chang said, which granted financial aid to other countries, not the other way around.

According to the Sankei Shimbun, Japan provided Taiwan with soft loans totaling ?54 billion in 1965 to finance 15 infrastructure projects, including dam and reservoir construction and the development of several fertilizer-producing factories.

In its second financial aid package to Taiwan in 1971, Japan offered Taiwan loans of ?8.1 billion, which helped finance three development projects, including telecommunications development, the report said.

After Japan severed formal ties with Taiwan in September 1972, according to the report, it continued to provide Taiwan with financial aid. Over the past 30 years, the Japanese government, via the Interchange Association, has offered about ?12 billion to help finance various industrial and research projects in Taiwan, in addition to dispatching technical experts to the island to help complete the aid programs, it said.

In the current fiscal year, Ja-panese financial aid to Taiwan totaled only ?48 million, compared with the ?167.9 billion that it offered to China, the newspaper was reported as saying.

The Sankei Shimbun said that news of Japan's move had caused concern among Taiwanese officials and the private sector.