Wed, Sep 20, 2000 page3

• Economic office hopes to elude furor over title

  WHAT'S IN A NAME? A new agency to help boost investment in the Slovak Republic opens today, but its official-sounding name has raised eyebrows

  • By Monique Chu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Yesterday, one day before the opening of the so-called "Slovak Republic Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Taiwan," self-designated general director of the office Victor Pan (潘勝正) and his Slovak partner decided to change the name of the office.

  The new title is: Representative Office of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency in Taiwan.

  How could a government representative office overseas change its title just one day before the grand opening?

  

  A staff member of the Representative Office of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency in Taiwan, previously named the Slovak Republic Economic and Cultural Representative Office, arranges office supplies in front of the office's signboard bearing its old name.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  The answer is simple: the office is not a government representative office although its original title strongly suggests it is. Neither is the office a product of government-to-government negotiations between Taiwan and the Slovak Republic. Nor is its establishment endorsed by both government's authorities, officials at Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.

  The agency, instead, is the brainchild of a Taiwanese firm called Gudio Global Nation Net Corp (古迪歐全球國家網股份有限公司) and the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency, a unit established with financing from that country's Fund of National Property.

  The agency's offices are located at Gudio's offices in Taipei's Nankang Software Park. And as of yesterday, even the agency's signboard was not posted at the entrance.

  "The office represents our agency, not our government," said Roman Minarovic, General Director of the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SITDA), who arrived in Taipei yesterday.

  Minarovic said his agency had signed an agreement with Gudio, which specializes in E-commerce, about two months ago to set up an office representing the SITDA in Taiwan.

  But when it came to the choice of the title of the office, Minarovic and his Taiwanese counterpart decided to stick to the title of "Slovak Republic Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Taiwan."

  "This title is like an explanation of what we want to do here. That is, the office will offer the same type of services, except issuing visas, offered at many of our representative offices in other countries, although it's without the government's confirmation," Minarovic said.

  But the official-sounding name has not escaped the notice of those keeping a close watch on such titles. "It is the original title that is problematic because it may create the wrong impression that the agency is an official one," said Liu Hsiang-pu (劉祥璞), director general of MOFA's Department of European Affairs.

  Liu also admitted his puzzlement over the nature of the office when receiving its invitation card. "It's just odd to find on the card that a Taiwanese will head the office to represent the Slovak Republic here in Taiwan and that the card carries the emblem of a Slovak national flag," Liu said.

  To learn more about the agency, Liu instructed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Czech Republic to inquire with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Slovak Republic. The response was that the agency was not endorsed by the Slovak ministry and was therefore not official in nature.

  Liu said the Taiwanese firm, together with some Slovak officials, had visited MOFA last year to express their willingness to set up an agency in Taiwan to promote foreign investment in the former Soviet bloc country, but that measures taken so far were problematic.

  "We welcome any move from the private sector to develop business relations with the Slovak Republic, but the problem lies in whether such an agency is set up in accordance with related regulations and whether the title of the agency is appropriate," Liu said.

  Asked to respond to Liu's comment on the original title of the office as "misleading," Pan, director general of the agency office as well as one of the five co-founders of Gudio, could only say: "I don't know."

  Officials at the Chinese embassy in Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic, also expressed concern over the establishment of the new agency in Taiwan under its original title, said Minarovic.

  "They said they were not against economic relations with Taiwan, but against any move to set up any government representative office such as an embassy in Taiwan," said Minarovic.

  In the wake of protests from Taiwan's MOFA as well as China, Pan said the title for the agency was changed.

  "We don't want to deal with politics. Once politics enters the scene, the dispute will be endless," Pan said.

  Business interests in the Slovak Republic and not politics after all are what drove the E-commerce firm to present a proposal to Minarovic's agency to set up "a European Silicon Valley" in the central European country.

  "The idea is something that has been created here in Taiwan," said Minarovic, adding that Taiwan's comparative advantage in developing information technology is what drove his agency to cooperate with Gudio to set up an office in Taiwan in order to attract foreign direct investment.

  Despite Pan's reluctance to say directly that the agency's goal is to attract investment in his firm's not-yet-realized project in the Slovak Republic, a business analyst, who refused to be named, said the purpose of the agency was indeed to strengthen the firm's presence in the central European country.

  Pan insists that the function of the new agency is to introduce information regarding the Slovak Republic's economy, culture, tourism, trade and investment.

  Pan and Minarovic saw an even larger potential role for the agency. "Maybe it will be a good engine for starting government-to-government negotiations," said Minarovic.

  Pan also said if the agency, scheduled to begin operations today, is successful, it may be upgraded to become an official representative office in the future.

  But MOFA officials poured cold water on such a prediction.

  "The possibility of that is very low," said Liu, adding that "out of principle" no MOFA officials would attend today's opening ceremony of the new agency.
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