A five-member parliamentary delegation from Austria’s lower house, or National Council, arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a five-day visit, making them the first group of lawmakers from Austria to visit the nation since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
During their stay until Sunday, the delegates, led by Carmen Jeitler-Cincelli, are to meet with Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Roy Lee (李純), the ministry said in a statement.
They are also due to visit the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government-funded think tank, United Microelectronics Corp, a leading contract chipmaker, and the Taipei Computer Association, it said.
Photo courtesy of MOFA
The group is also expected to visit the Taiwan Equality Campaign, a coalition of non-governmental organizations promoting women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as the National Human Rights Museum, it added.
The other members of the delegation are parliamentarians Andreas Minnich, Peter Weidinger, Corinna Scharzenberger and Fiona Fiedler.
The National Council is one of two houses of the Austrian parliament and is frequently referred to as the lower house.
Photo: AP
The Federal Council is the upper house of the Austrian parliament and represents the nine Austrian states at the federal level.
Meanwhile, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer concluded a two-day visit to Taiwan earlier this week, making her the first sitting governor of the US state to visit the nation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Whitmer and her delegation arrived in Taiwan on Monday and were welcomed by Lee at a dinner at the ministry in Taipei on Monday night.
In his address during the dinner, Lee welcomed Whitmer’s visit, saying that the trip would help both sides continue to enhance their multifaced partnership, particularly in terms of education, trade and technology.
Taiwan and Michigan signed a memorandum of understanding in May that aims to boost economic investment, supply-chain resiliency, technology and innovation collaborations, and industry-academic connections, Lee said.
The governor, a Democrat, wrote on X that her brief Taipei trip was meant to give her an insight into the nation’s semiconductor industry.
“In 2021, Michigan’s automotive assembly lines came to a halt because overseas manufacturers couldn’t produce semiconductor chips,” she wrote. “That’s why I went to Taiwan — a major semiconductor chip hub in the world — to bring manufacturing back to Michigan so that never happens again.”
Neither the ministry nor Whitmer provided more details on the itinerary of the trip, which concluded on Tuesday.
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