All of Taiwan’s former diplomatic allies, apart from two African states, are repaying loans owed to Taiwanese banks in accordance with their contracts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said that all funds loaned to former allies were part of commercial agreements with Taiwanese banks and the ministry had only been the facilitator.
Like all commercial loans, the contracts stated the rights and responsibilities of both parties, including dispute settlement mechanisms, Liu said.
Photo: Yang Yao-ju, Taipei Times
The ending of diplomatic ties does not affect the validity of these contracts, so the former allies still have to repay the loans, he said, citing information given by Taiwanese banks.
Almost all of these former allies have been doing so, including Honduras, with only two exceptions — the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liu said.
If a breach of contract occurs, banks can use international judicial channels to take legal action, a standard practice when disputes arise regarding commercial loans, Liu said.
Liu said this was why a Taiwanese bank had filed and won a lawsuit against the two nations.
He was referring to an April 2017 ruling that saw Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China successfully sue the two African nations for US$212 million in unpaid loans taken out when Taiwan still had diplomatic relations with them.
However, the two subsequently failed to begin repayments and the Taiwanese bank is currently investigating other methods to recover the assets, the ministry said.
Taiwan ended diplomatic ties with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1973 and the Central African Republic in 1998.
Liu made the remarks during a briefing when he was asked to comment on a Honduran media report released last week that said the Central American nation still owed Taiwanese banks US$449 million after ending diplomatic ties.
The funds from Taiwan were used for property reconstruction, school infrastructure, school meals and other projects, Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa reported.
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