Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday.
The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release.
Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said.
Photo: AFP
The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of economic and trade relations between Taiwan and Thailand, it said.
The two sides previously signed an investment agreement in 1996, but as businesses have evolved and diversified that deal no longer met the needs of overseas investors, it said.
The new agreement was negotiated to provide more comprehensive protections and boost investor confidence, by ensuring that investment information remains transparent while a designated window is established to handle investment-related matters, the OTN said.
Information transparency means whenever there are new investment-related regulations or measures are amended, they must be announced immediately so businesses can more easily evaluate and formulate business plans, it added.
Meanwhile, the two sides would be required to establish a designated window to answer investment-related questions, allowing investors to quickly understand changes to the investment environment, it said.
Based on trade and investment statistics, since the implementation of the government’s New Southbound Policy in 2016, bilateral trade between Taiwan and Thailand has increased 74.6 percent from US$9.3 billion to US$16.24 billion, it said.
During this period, bilateral investment has also risen by 119.8 percent from US$3.18 billion to US$6.99 billion, reflecting Thailand’s status as one of Taiwan’s main trading and investment partners in ASEAN.
Exports of Taiwanese products to Thailand mainly include electrical components as well as machinery and other related parts, and it is also the Southeast Asian country’s largest supplier of integrated circuits.
In other news, Taiwan and Somaliland officials discussed energy and mineral exchanges as well as potential cooperation during Somaliland Minister of Energy and Minerals Abdilahi Farah Abdi’s visit on Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.
In a statement, MOFA said Abdi during a banquet on Thursday night highlighted Taiwan’s crucial role as an international development partner for Somaliland, and the African country’s abundant energy and mineral resources.
He expressed hope that the Taiwan-Somaliland energy and minerals meeting would boost Taiwanese business recognition of the African country’s investment potential, fostering long-term and mutually beneficial relations, MOFA said.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Remus Chen (陳立國) said the two nations signed an energy and minerals cooperation agreement in 2022, followed by an inaugural joint working group meeting on energy and minerals in Somaliland last year.
Abdi’s visit to Taiwan aims to deepen cooperation in exploring and developing oil, gas and strategic minerals, Chen said.
The two countries are committed to freedom and democracy, he said.
Taiwan and Somaliland have closely cooperated since establishing representative offices in 2020, Chen added.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS