Taiwan and the US plan to inaugurate a collaborative office in Taipei on Friday to strengthen economic and trade cooperation, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The Taiwan-US Industrial Collaboration Promotion Office will serve as an exclusive window to provide services and assistance for US firms, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Francis Liang (梁國新) told reporters after meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez.
FOUR AREAS
Liang said the office would first focus on four fields: biotechnology; intellectual property; information and communications; and the green industry.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) and Brent Christensen, deputy director of the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan, are set to attend the inauguration ceremony, the ministry said.
The US was Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner last year, as Taiwanese exports to the US totaled US$36.36 billion, while imports from the country amounted to US$25.75 billion.
INVESTMENTS
As of the end of April, Taiwanese firms had injected US$13 billion into 5,112 investment projects in the US, accounting for 19 percent of Taiwan’s outbound investment and the second-largest amount of investment in a single country.
After Taiwan last week passed a law to relax legal restrictions on imports of beef containing residues of ractopamine, the government called for the resumption of stalled trade talks with the US under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.
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