Taiwan plans to forge closer investment ties with Australia in science and biotechnology in the next century to integrate leading-edge sectors of both countries, economic officials from the two nations said yesterday.
Speaking at the annual joint conference of the ROC-Australia and Australia-Taiwan business councils, Australian Senator Ron Boswell of Queensland, head of a business delegation currently in Taiwan, said that two-way investment is still low, despite the growing bilateral trade over the past years.
"Two-way investment is still low when viewed against the overall strength of both economies and the healthy trade figures," Boswell said.
According to Boswell, Taiwan is only ranked 19th as a source of investment for Australia, and 24th as a destination for Australian investment.
While not at the level the two sides would like, bilateral trade between Taiwan and Australia has seen gradual improvement.
Taiwan is Australia's eighth largest trading partner, its sixth largest export destination, and ninth as a source of imported goods, according to the Australian Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei. Taiwan imports more than it exports to Australia, compared to China, according to the office's statistics.
Taiwan's imports from Australia were primarily coal, aluminum, iron and crude oil.
The countries completed a WTO deal in 1996. But Australian officials were not available for comment on Taiwanese or Chinese WTO entry progress.
The Australian officials specified liquuefied natural gas and science and technology as leading-edge areas for further two-way investment in the future.
They commented that Taiwan, which is becoming a "technology island," based on its successful information technology industry, has great strength in delivering commercial products to world markets, and that the Australian government places a high priority on helping Taiwan further develop these advantages.
Taiwan is currently the world 's thirrd largest producer of information products, and its output of semiconductor products ranks fourth worldwide.
"Our government has chosen to promote 10 emerging industries as the mainstays of our industrial development in the next century," Yiin Chii-min (
Both countries are close to signing two memorandums of understanding soon, including one on scientific cooperation with the National Science Council, and another to promote two-way investment in biotechnology with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Australian companies such as Brambles Australia just launched a project to extract methane gas from landfill, producing clean energy from urban rubbish. The countries resumed bilateral economic talks at senior levels for enhancing long-term business links last March after a seven-year gap .
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