Taiwan and Slovakia are headed for closer trade relations, Slovak Second State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy Karol Galek said yesterday at the Taiwanese-Slovak Commission on Economic Cooperation meeting in Taipei.
Taiwan and Slovakia’s cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic proves the countries’ ability to work together as equal partners “in good times and the bad,” and Slovakia is ready to work with Taiwan as “small but open economies” to “find our place in an ever-changing global economy,” Galek said.
“I believe that [the meeting] will bring far-reaching discussions, allowing both sides to make the best of their economic potential for future cooperation,” he said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Galek said he met with National Development Council (NDC) Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) early yesterday, when they discussed specific areas of potential cooperation, including on smart cities, space industries, electric vehicles and semiconductors.
Both sides agreed to create a working group to explore areas of cooperation in research and development, among other fields, he said.
“Slovakia supports Taiwan,” said Galek, who is leading a delegation of 18 senior officials and 25 businesspeople from Slovakia.
Kung, who led a 66-member delegation to Slovakia in October, when seven memorandums of understanding were signed, said that Slovakia and Taiwan should deepen trade relations.
“As Taiwan and Slovakia are both free, democratic partners with shared values, we have signed agreements since establishing offices in each other’s countries to avoid double taxation, foster technology cooperation, the establishment of e-government services, economic cooperation, working holidays and many other topics,” Kung said.
Trade between the countries has grown rapidly and Slovakia receives the second-highest investment from Taiwan among EU countries at 500 million euros (US$564.64 million), creating 3,000 Slovak jobs.
“After visiting Slovakia in October, many Taiwanese companies are willing to increase their investments in Slovakia,” Kung said.
Taiwan’s donation of masks to Slovakia in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and Slovakia’s later donation of 160,000 vaccines to Taiwan formed the basis of trust between the two nations, he said.
“The mutual donations became what President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) described as a ‘circle of good,’” Kung said.
“We hope that this circle can be extended to the economic realm,” he said.
Director-General of Economic and Development Cooperation at Slovakia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Lucia Kiss said in her opening address that the talks “open a wave of active and direct consultations between the ministries of both countries, and it is an important historic event in our bilateral relations.”
That the Slovak delegation decided to visit Taiwan despite the COVID-19 pandemic shows that Slovakia is determined to “deepen and upgrade economic relations with Taiwan,” she said.
Yesterday’s opening ceremony was also attended by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) and Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Chen Chern-chyi (陳正祺).
The Slovak delegation is visiting Taiwan until Friday.
Additional reporting by CNA
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”