British Minister of State for Transport Susan Kramer yesterday said that she looks forward to much closer collaboration between Taiwan and the UK to bring more opportunities for both sides after she witnessed the signing of two agreements in connection with the railway industry.
“The UK’s relationship with Taiwan has never been closer,” Kramer said. “We already share bold plans and strong policies in transport and innovation in technology, and UK companies continue to forge close ties with Taiwanese businesses.”
On Monday and yesterday, Kramer led 14 companies and organizations on her nation’s largest railway mission to Taiwan, during which they met with officials including Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Chien-yu (陳建宇), Environmental Protection Administration Minster Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Photo: CNA
“This has been an excellent trip,” Kramer told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding between the UK’s Railway Industrial Association and the Rail Engineering Society of Taiwan and the signing of a letter of intent on railway training plans between the UK’s National Rail Engineers Skills Academy and Taiwan’s China Engineering Consultants.
“We have found many areas of common interest that would lead to very good future collaboration,” she added.
Kramer said that skills development is an area of focus for both sides.
The UK companies in the delegation are strong in innovation and some of their ideas may work very comfortably with Taiwanese firms, while in the UK there is a strong need to improve railway engineering skills, Kramer said.
On Monday, Kramer visited a construction site of the express link being built to connect Taipei and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, one of many transport projects that have involved UK infrastructure companies, like the high-speed rail system and the MRT systems in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Kramer said that during meetings with Ko and Taipei government officials, she was asked about her experiences managing transport during the London Olympics in 2012.
Taipei and London have many problems in common, because they are both populous cities working to bring together a combination of new projects and existing systems to meet the needs of extensive public transportation services, Kramer said.
Taipei is to host the 2017 Summer Universiade.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods