An agricultural delegation from Taiwan has signed letters of intent with representatives from the US governments of Illinois and Iowa to purchase soybeans and corn from the two US states.
Former Council of Agriculture deputy minister Wang Cheng-teng (王政騰), who led the delegation to the US, said Taiwan is an important importer of US agricultural products and both sides have forged closer economic ties through years of exchanges.
With the signing of the agreements to buy the products from the US, Wang said that he hoped Taipei and Washington would continue to strengthen their bilateral economic relationship, while continuing agricultural and cultural exchanges.
He said that with such close ties, he hopes the US would support Taiwan’s bid to be included in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
At the signing ceremony with Illinois held earlier this week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner expressed his gratitude to Taiwan for the purchases.
“Agriculture helps our state secure a strong position in the global economy. We look forward to a long, continued relationship with our friends from Taiwan so that together we can help feed the world,” Rauner said in a statement.
At the other signing ceremony, Iowa Deputy Governor Kim Reynolds said that Taiwan is an important buyer of the state’s agricultural products and through the purchases both sides are expected to increase their cooperation.
In addition to Reynolds, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago Director Calvin Ho (何震寰) and several pro-Taiwan US senators and representatives attended the ceremony.
Ho said that since 1989, Taiwan and Iowa have been “sister states” and that he is delighted to see both sides further improve the bilateral relationship. He said Taiwan is the sixth-largest Asian market for products from Iowa.
During its visit to the US, the Taiwanese delegation is expected to commit to buying 5 million tonnes of corn and 500,000 tonnes of related products, valued at US$1.23 billion, from US producers next year and in 2017, Taiwan’s representative office in the US said.
It also aims to buy 2.5 million to 2.9 million tonnes of soy bean valued at US$1.13 billion to US$1.26 billion during the two years.
Last year, Taiwan was the US’ 10th-largest trading partner and the seventh-largest buyer of US agricultural products, while the US ranked as Taiwan’s second-largest trading partner and its second-largest foreign investor.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater