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
REACHING OUT: President Tsai expressed condolences to the deceased man’s family and wished a speedy recovery to those who were wounded in the shooting The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) on Monday called on the US to label organizations associated with the suspect in the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church shooting as domestic terrorists, following accusations that he was a member of a group backing unification with ties to the Chinese government. David Wenwei Chou (周文偉), 68, was arrested on Sunday and is being held in lieu of US$1 million bail at the Orange County Intake Release Center over a mass shooting at the California church that left one dead and five wounded. Local police suspect the shooting was politically motivated after they found notes in
LIVING WITH COVID-19: Close contacts with a booster shot would no longer follow the ‘3+4’ policy, instead practicing ‘0+7,’ or self-disease prevention for seven days Close contacts of COVID-19 cases who have received a booster shot no longer need to isolate at home, but should practice seven days of “self-disease prevention,” effective today, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that starting at 12am today, close contacts — people living in the same household — of those confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 are exempt from home isolation if they have received a booster shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Data from other countries show that people who have received a booster shot are
‘TOO RESTRICTIVE’: Ending US sales of weapons that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric’ would hamper Taiwan’s defense against China, two business groups said Taiwan’s weapons procurement decisions are made based on its needs, and are not influenced by individual arms dealers, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday after two US business groups questioned a US official’s comment on arms sales to Taiwan. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Mira Resnick told the business groups via video link on Saturday that Washington would adjust the types of weapons sold to Taiwan and end “most arms sales to Taiwan that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric.’” The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan and the US-Taiwan Business Council on Monday
MANY VOICES: The Formosa Club, 94 Mexican lawmakers, 70 Brazilian lawmakers and others signed a letter recommending Taiwan’s inclusion to the WHO director-general A WHO official on Monday said the organization would begin discussing a motion to restore Taiwan’s observer status in six days’ time, after confirming the receipt of a request from 13 member states to deliberate the matter. Steven Solomon, the WHO principal legal officer, made the comment at a news briefing ahead of the 75th meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the organization’s decisionmaking body in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHA Executive Board would meet in a closed-door session on Sunday evening to advise the member states, which would then meet the next day to determine whether the motion would be entered