Taiwan and the UK are to mutually recognize their criteria, regulations and procedures to inspect and certify aviation products after signing a bilateral aviation security agreement on Tuesday.
Under the agreement, Taiwanese aviation products exported to the UK are no longer subject to batch-by-batch inspections, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said in a statement, adding that the same would apply to UK-made products entering Taiwan.
CAA Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) said that talks to draft an agreement began last year, after the UK officially left the EU on Dec. 31, 2020.
Photo courtesy of the Civil Aeronautics Administration
With the British Civil Aviation Agency taking over the responsibilities of the EU Aviation Safety Agency in the UK, Taiwan no longer accepts British products’ EU-issued documents, he said.
EU-issued documents for Taiwanese products are also no longer valid in the UK, he added.
Since the beginning of last year, the CAA had to inspect British aviation product imports batch by batch to ensure their safety, while the British agency adopted a similar procedure for aviation products from Taiwan, Lin said.
The bilateral agreement, which was finalized following multiple rounds of negotiation, stipulates methods of mutual recognition for aviation products, he said.
Lin had originally planned to fly to London and sign the agreement there.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the soon-to-opened legislative session, the agreement was first signed by British Civil Aviation Agency Chief Executive Officer Richard Moriarty in London and later by Lin in Taipei, the CAA said.
Taiwan has developed aircraft cabin seats that can withstand gravitational force up to 16G and manufactures widely used aviation products including containers, pallets and cargo nets, Lin said.
“All these products, including those previously certified by the EU agency, have obtained technical standard order authorizations from the British agency. They can be directly exported to the UK and require no secondary certification,” he said.
“This would save time and costs required for the verification of Taiwanese aviation products to be sold in the UK and effectively increase the competitiveness of our technical standard products. The deal will also help the country’s civil aviation industry expand in the international market,” Lin added.
The CAA first signed a bilateral airworthiness agreement for exports with the US in 2003, followed by an agreement with the EU in 2009, the agency said, adding that similar agreements have also been signed with Israel and Brazil.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
RSS