Shin Chi-chih (辛繼志) has been named Taiwan’s new envoy to Ivory Coast, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is preparing to reopen its representative office in the West African country soon, a ministry official said yesterday.
Shin, a former representative in Provence, France, arrived in the African country late last month to prepare for the reopening of the office following its closure in 2017, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Deputy Director Wu Cheng-wei (吳正偉) said.
Wu said preparations for the office’s reopening were still ongoing, and did not provide an estimate for its completion.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Shin, who graduated from the Taipei-based Chinese Culture University after studying French there, served at the representative office in Paris, the Department of West Asian and African Affairs, and as a minister at the embassy in Haiti, before being chosen as the first envoy to head Taiwan’s representative office in Provence when it opened in 2020.
Taiwan and Ivory Coast ended official diplomatic relations in 1983, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs operated a Taiwan Economic Bureau in the country until January 2017, MOFA said.
The office was shut due to concerns about business operations, it said, but did not elaborate.
Since then, Taiwan’s trade office in Nigeria and its representative office in France have been jointly responsible for overseeing its affairs in Ivory Coast, MOFA said.
Taiwan and Ivory Coast last year reached an agreement to reopen the office, which is to be named Bureau de Representation de Taipei en Cote d’Ivoire in French and the Taipei Representative Office in Ivory Coast in English.
With an area of 320,000km2, Ivory Coast has a population of nearly 26 million people.
The nation also has the fastest-growing economy in Africa, with GDP growth reaching 7.4 percent in 2017 and 6.9 percent in 2018, MOFA said, citing World Bank data.
The country is also rich in natural resources including cocoa, coffee, oil and gold, making it a springboard for Taiwanese business ventures throughout the region, it added.
Taiwan only has one African nation among its 14 diplomatic allies, Eswatini.
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