Mr. Winsor, Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei; Mr. Ledoux, Head of the European Economic and Trade Office; Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and Representatives; Cabinet members of the Republic of China government, ladies and gentlemen: Good evening!
Today I am very privileged to be once again invited to attend the Europe Day Dinner hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT). This is my third time attending this auspicious event, and I am pleased to take this opportunity to celebrate the 53rd anniversary marking the creation of the European Union with friends from Europe and other countries. On behalf of the government and people of the Republic of China on Taiwan, I first would like to extend my best wishes to the European Union and its 27 members. Happy birthday to the European Union, and may Europe enjoy everlasting peace, progress and prosperity.
This year also coincides with the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the "Schuman Plan," which put Europe on the path of integration. Over the past 60 years, we have witnessed Europe rise from the ashes of war to the prosperity which it now enjoys; from the conflict and uncertainty of yesteryear to the peace and stability of today. The Lisbon Treaty came into force on December 1st last year, accelerating the pace for achievement of an even more integrated Europe. It has empowered the European Union to undergo large scale institutional and organizational reforms, as well as personnel changes, to improve the efficiency of its operation, and increase its global influence. The entire world has been impressed by the EU's success story and continues efforts to reinforce its integration process so as to better face internal and external challenges. I believe this giant step that the European Union has taken for its increased cohesion will create even stronger impetus to improve Taiwan-EU relations.
Taiwan's contributions to the international community in support of the theme of Europe Day
This year the theme of the Europe Day is "Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion." Although the Republic of China has long been not represented in the United Nations, we have always dedicated ourselves to global humanitarian aid of all kinds in accordance with the spirit of the United Nations charter. Our overall mission is no different from the Europe Day theme this year. For instance, Taiwan has dispatched 3 medical and 32 technical teams to our diplomatic allies in Africa, Central and South America and the Pacific. In addition to building 5 hospitals and 14 vocational training centers there, we have also helped our allies to develop solar energy technology, bridge the digital divide and combat malaria.
Now I would like to show you a very interesting device. Well, when we learned that some school children in Burkina Faso in western Africa could not do their homework at night due to the lack of electrical power supply and instead, have to make use of the street lights, we immediately began working to develop a solar energy lamp that can be used for 4 to 5 hours after each recharging by sunlight. What made this special is that as the recharging has to be done at school, students must go to school everyday to get it done. These specially-made lamps have gone into mass production, and the first shipment of 1,000 lamps was delivered to Burkina Faso early this month. Today I brought with me a solar lamp collection -- appreciate the high-tech, low-cost device, the cost of which is only US$10. Some people call it a lamp for combating poverty, "une lampe pour lutter contre la pauvreté." Forgive my poor French. I planned to present the lamps to our hosts and each of the 21 EU representatives opposite here, our European friends. We would also like to provide this unique lamp to help other developing countries. I will certainly try to persuade the manufacturer to give you a discount.
At the outset of this year when our ally Haiti underwent a devastating earthquake, our rescue and relief team was one of the first to reach the disaster area. Among the 133 persons pulled out from the debris by international rescue teams, our team, either alone or working with other teams, managed to rescue 11 people. Taiwan also built 1,200 housing units, permanent or temporary, as well as gave assistance to more than 8,000 to 10,000 poor children or orphans. Our actions demonstrate our dedication to fulfilling our international responsibility and our unwavering support for this year's theme of Europe Day. This has a lot to do with our change of policy in our foreign relations.
"Flexible diplomacy" has increased our international space and improved Taiwan-EU substantive relations
I have adopted what I call "a flexible diplomacy" in order to conduct a very unorthodox way of external relations of this country. The idea basically is to stop unnecessary struggle between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland in trying to win over the support of its diplomatic allies. I am trying to improve relations with the mainland, trying to transform the erstwhile flashpoint in East Asia into a boulevard of peace and prosperity. And certainly, the cross-strait relations used to be a liability of this country. Now we hope we could transform that into an asset of this country, hoping to create more opportunities for this country to participate meaningfully in international organizations and other events. So the process of European integration could also shed some light on the relations between Taiwan and the mainland.
And we appreciate greatly, in the last two years the European Union issued 11 statements in support of Taiwan's participation in international organizations, particularly the World Health Assembly. For example, in May last year, the President of the EU issued a statement on behalf of 39 countries, including the 27 EU member states and the 12 candidate countries to the members of the European Economic Area, in which they strongly supported Taiwan's participation in the 62nd session of the World Health Assembly as an observer. Tonight, the Health Minister of this country will depart for the WHA meeting in Geneva. This year we also received an invitation. We hope we could receive it every year, and eventually become a member of the World Health Organization, thanks to the help of our European friends. In August last year, Taiwan was hard hit by a devastating typhoon, and I received a very warm letter from the European Commission President Barroso and President of the European Parliament Buzek. We also got concrete support from the EU, which sent a team of specialists for a 10-day visit and gave us very encouraging remarks on our rescue and reconstruction work. On March 10th this year, the European Parliament passed a resolution strongly supporting Taiwan's participation as an observer in other international organizations, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is something that I want to express my heartfelt gratitude.
This past year also witnessed many distinguished visitors coming to Taiwan, including the former President of Latvia, the former Irish Foreign Minister, 19 Members of the European Parliament and 151 members of the national parliaments of 18 EU member states. We are overwhelmed by your friendship and we also welcome very much the establishment of the Trade and Investment Office of Luxembourg in Taipei last October. That would bring the total number of the representatives from Europe to 21. In addition, Taiwan has signed 11 agreements, or MOUs, with 8 member countries of the European Union, covering a wide range of subjects, including agriculture, finance, aviation, science & technology, energy, customs, and mutual recognition of driving licenses. Today, we have already signed air services agreements with 13 European countries, and there are currently 146 weekly passenger and cargo flights between Taiwan and Europe. That is why when the ashes came from the volcano in Iceland, we also felt depression.
Appealing to the EU to grant us Schengen visa waiver treatment
Certainly, we hope we would be able to get visa-free treatment for our visitors to Europe this year. I understand there will be a process for processing the application, but just let me point out to you that ever since Great Britain gave us the visa waiver treatment, the passengers to the United Kingdom have increased by 40% as a result. We are also working on other countries as far as the visa waiver program is concerned.
The cross-strait "Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement" is a further incentive for the completion of a Taiwan-EU Free Trade Agreement
I am sure many of you are interested and also concerned about the ongoing negotiations between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland on the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA). This is a very important agreement for Taiwan and for the Chinese mainland. As you know, in the last 2 years, we have already concluded 12 agreements with the Chinese mainland, covering many important subjects, such as direct flight, the arrival of mainland tourists, food safety, the employment of fishermen from the mainland, and mutual judicial assistance. These 12 agreements were signed not only to solve the many problems that were brought about by very close contact with the mainland, so that we could institutionalize our relations with the mainland. These agreements also contribute to further progress on trade, investment, and peaceful development.
For ECFA, it will cover 3 major subjects: first is the elimination or reduction of customs and tariffs; secondly, the protection of intellectual property rights; and thirdly, the investment guarantees. It is a framework agreement because it will not be completed in one shot. We will complete the first part of it — which is usually called "early harvest package" — that will cover only a small portion of the goods and services that flow across the Taiwan Strait. For the IPR protection, it's going to be a solid agreement. For the investment guarantees, it will remain to be negotiated after ECFA is signed. After ECFA is signed, it will be sent to our national parliament, the Legislative Yuan, for approval.
When that is done, mainland China and Taiwan will notify the World Trade Organization according to its procedures. This is a very important, strategic move by Taiwan. It will not only reduce taxes and tariffs, making more exports from Taiwan to the mainland and the mainland to Taiwan, it will also help foreign companies in Taiwan to increase their exports to the Chinese mainland. That is why we believe if we are able to do this, the companies in Taiwan, including European companies, will have a much stronger incentive to make more investments or to enlarge their current investments. It will also make Taiwan the real regional springboard for trade and investment. As a matter of fact, when I was campaigning 2 years ago for the presidency, I have already declared what's my blueprint for Taiwan's economic future. I want to make Taiwan a global innovation center. I want to make Taiwan the regional hub for trade and investment. I want to make Taiwan, particularly, the home, the world headquarters, for Taiwanese corporations, and regional headquarters for other international corporations. By having an ECFA, it will be much easier for us to achieve that goal. I remember almost 18 years ago when I visited Europe and delivered a speech in the North Atlantic Assembly in Brussels. My speech was later printed in the April 1994 edition of the NATO Review. At the time, I called for the creation of strategic alliances between European companies and their Taiwanese counterparts. That was the year of 1992. We had just started our intercourse with the Chinese mainland. I certainly recognized the conditions at the time were not quite mature. But now the situation is very different. I think this time I want to reiterate what I said 18 years ago. We hope European companies could take advantage of Taiwan's strategic position as the geographical center of East Asia to expand their contact to the rest of this part of the world.
When you look at the economic outlook of Taiwan this year, I think many of you will, like myself, feel cautiously optimistic. My government estimates the growth rate at 4.72%, but the International Monetary Fund says, "No, it will be 6.5%." Certainly, we hope they are right. But no matter whether it is 4.7 or 6.5, certainly there is an upbeat spirit in this society, hoping that we could not only recover from the global financial tsunami and economic downturn, but also create many more new jobs for our people, to make us come back to the original route of fast economic development. For our relations with Europe, the European Union, the 27 members, have already been the number 1 investor in Taiwan with a total investment of US$ 27 billion. Our trade with the mainland, before the financial tsunami, was 47 billion, but last year, it went down to 37, but I am sure this year it will pick up again.
I appreciate very much the title of the ECCT's position paper, that goes "Taiwan Bouncing Back". We are doing exactly that. So after we conclude the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with mainland China, we certainly hope we will do the same with the European Union. In your jargon it's called trade enhancement measures (TEM). No matter the title, I think it is very important for our two sides to enter into a brand new alliance so that it will benefit both of us.
According to recent studies done by the Europeans, both sides will benefit a lot from such a new relationship. This is exactly what my administration has been able to try to do in the last 2 years. First, we want to become a peacemaker; second, we want to become a humanitarian aid provider. And most importantly, we also want to become a business opportunity creator.
Ladies and gentlemen, in celebration of the 53rd anniversary of the European Union, I want to assure you that Taiwan will forever be a friend of Europe, and we will work together to create more business opportunities for our people, to create a peaceful environment for Asia and for the world. I think we can do it. Yes, we can! Thank you very much.