Taiwan and Somaliland on Wednesday held a joint working group to seek cooperation in oil, gas and mineral exploration and exploitation.
The first meeting of the Taiwan-Somaliland Joint Working Group on Energy and Mineral Resources Cooperation was held at the Somaliland Ministry of Energy and Minerals, the Taiwan Representative Office in Somaliland said in a statement.
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) signed the Energy and Mineral Resources Cooperation Agreement with Somaliland Minister of Energy and Minerals Abdilahi Farah Abdi in May last year to deepen cooperation in the energy and mineral sectors.
Photo courtesy of the Somaliland Representative Office in Taiwan
The Ministry of Economic Affairs sent a delegation to attend the meeting during a visit to Somaliland from Monday to today, the office said.
The delegation also visited the country’s Ministry of Trade and Tourism, Ministry of Investment and Industrial Development, and Ministry of Energy and Minerals, it added.
During the meeting, the two sides explored ways to promote closer bilateral cooperation in the sectors and exchanged ideas on energy and mineral resources policies, it said.
With its experience in oil exploration and production in Africa, Taiwan can share its expertise through training programs, it said.
Overseas Petroleum and Investment Corp, a unit owned by CPC Corp, Taiwan and UK-based Genel Energy PLC, contracted two out of the 85 potential oil fields in Somaliland, Representative to Somaliland Allen Lou (羅震華) said.
The project can serve as an example of oil exploitation in the region and “bring in more foreign investors,” he said, adding that investor confidence would be boosted by Somaliland’s reassurance that its government controls the land resources.
“Taiwan is a quality cooperation partner for like-minded democratic partners” in oil exploitation, he said.
Farah Abdi thanked Department of International Cooperation Director-General Chen Yung-jang (陳永章) for leading the delegation, and said he hopes to promote the exchange of experience and knowledge in the energy and mineral sectors.
The meeting would also help build regulations around exploration, exploitation, training and data, he added.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked