President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) plans to visit the nation’s diplomatic allies in the South Pacific region early next year and attend a Taiwan-South Pacific leaders’ summit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Ma was originally scheduled to visit the South Pacific and attend the leaders’ summit in the Solomon Islands in October. The plan was canceled after Typhoon Morakot struck in August. The typhoon was the most devastating to hit the nation in half a century and killed more than 600 people.
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“Climate change will be one of the topics expected to be discussed by President Ma and his South Pacific counterparts during the summit,” said Ger Bau-shuan (葛葆萱), deputy director-general of the ministry’s Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Climate change is an important issue for the South Pacific and all Taiwan’s six allies in that region will be represented at the next conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which opens in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Monday, Ger said.
Other issues of mutual concern, including agriculture, medical services and vocational training, are also expected to be on the summit’s agenda, Ger said.
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The heads of state of Taiwan’s six diplomatic allies in the South Pacific region — the Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu — are all expected to attend the summit, whose exact date has yet to be decided, Ger said.
The summit will be the third since 2006, when it was first held in Palau, and Taiwan was represented by then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
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