Vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) visited the European Parliament at the invitation of lawmakers, a gesture that shows Taiwan and the EU are partners with shared values, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
On behalf of European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, European Parliament First Vice President Othmar Karas welcomed Hsiao to the legislative body, making her the first vice president-elect of Taiwan to visit the European Parliament before being sworn in, the ministry said.
The visit would help Europe better understand Taiwan’s determination to safeguard peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, as well as deepen and expand cooperation between Taiwan and the EU, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Hsiao also met with Reinhard Butikofer — a German member of the European Parliament and chairman of the parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China — and European Parliament-Taiwan Friendship Group chairman Michael Gahler.
Hsiao also exchanged views on issues of mutual interest with members of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, the ministry said.
At a welcoming reception held by the friendship group, Hsiao thanked its members for their longstanding, firm support of Taiwan, adding that she hoped the EU would continue to back the democratic nation through concrete actions.
Taiwan and European countries have been engaging in ever-closer exchanges in the past few years, the ministry said, citing the European Council’s voicing of its opposition to “any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion” for the first time in its meeting conclusions in June last year.
The EU is Taiwan’s fifth-largest trading partner and the largest source of foreign direct investment, with its member states investing a cumulative US$71.8 billion in the nation, it said.
Last year, Taiwan signed 29 cooperation agreements with European countries in fields such as agriculture, medicine, healthcare, education, culture, science and technology, it said.
That same year several Taiwanese ministers also visited EU countries, while 74 delegations of European parliamentarians and administrative officials were invited to visit Taiwan, it added.
As a responsible member of the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan would continue to deepen cooperation with like-minded partners such as the EU and the European Parliament to safeguard global and regional security and prosperity, it said.
This story has been amended since it was first published.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS