A delegation led by Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) is heading to Vietnam today to negotiate over damage sustained by Taiwanese businesses during the recent anti-China protests there.
During the planned four-day visit, the delegation is to discuss compensation to investors under the bilateral investment protection agreement both countries signed in 1993, Shen told a press conference at the Executive Yuan.
Shen declined to unveil the list of Vietnamese officials the delegation is to meet with in Hanoi.
Photo: CNA
Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said that meetings “were all set up,” but both sides preferred not to disclose the schedule.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said 224 Taiwanese businesses suffered losses, including 18 whose facilities were set ablaze by rioters, after protests in Vietnam that erupted after China deployed an oil rig near the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which are claimed by Taiwan, China and Vietnam.
They included 175 in Binh Duong Province, 41 in Dong Nai Province, six in Ho Chi Minh City, one in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province and one in Ha Tinh Province, the ministry said.
Last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the government would seek to file a united claim seeking compensation for the damage caused to Taiwan-owned businesses with Japan, South Korea and Singapore because protesters also destroyed some factories owned by their nationals, but Shen said yesterday that Taiwan would talk to Vietnam first.
The delegation is composed of high-ranking officials in charge of investment, taxation, insurance, loans, labor, credit guarantee funds and other areas.
“We hope that we can decide how to meet [Taiwanese investors’] demands to help them get back to normal operation as soon as possible,” Shen said.
Shen said he had talked to several firms in Vietnam recently, and none were considering withdrawing capital from Vietnam, but they hoped that the riots would never recur.
Separately, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday sent a delegation led by KMT Deputy Chairman Tseng Tung-chuan (曾永權) and Legislator Chan Kai-chen (詹凱臣) to offer sympathy to Taiwanese businesspeople in Vietnam and to learn about their needs.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has instructed the delegation to provide Taiwanese investors with assistance to get back to business as soon as possible.
On behalf of the Democratic Progressive Party, Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) also arrived in Vietnam to offer help yesterday.
Tsai said that he would listen to the needs of Taiwanese businesspeople and urge the government to support them as much as possible.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS