President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of January 6 with a delegation of Canadian parliamentarians at the Presidential Office. The president, on behalf of the government and people of the ROC, expressed a cordial welcome to the lawmakers.
The president commented that substantive relations between Taiwan and Canada have grown considerably in recent years. On the trade front, Taiwan is Canada's 13th largest trading partner overall and its fourth largest trading partner in Asia. President Ma pointed to statistics showing that bilateral trade reached US$3.9 billion in 2009 and was forecast to break through the US$4.0 billion mark in 2010. The president also remarked that about 150,000 Taiwanese travel to Canada each year for business, visits, and tourism. Some 15,000 Taiwanese students are presently studying in Canada. Besides being the fourth most popular overseas destination for Taiwan students, Canada is also one of the most favored places among Taiwan youth to go to on working holidays, he said.
President Ma furthermore recalled that the Canadian government immediately offered its congratulations after he was elected to his position in March 2008, and it also sent a delegation to Taiwan to attend his inauguration. Last year, Taiwan's representative office in Canada held a cocktail party to mark the ROC's national day, and 12 members of the Senate and 70 members of the House of Commons attended the gala, including six ministers and five deputy ministers, the largest such delegation ever. Meanwhile, the president remarked that Canada was most supportive of Taiwan when it attended the World Health Assembly. Taiwan, he said, is deeply encouraged by the friendly interaction between the two nations.
President Ma stressed that since taking office he has made every effort to improve cross-strait relations and reduce tension in the Taiwan Strait, hoping to put cross-strait ties on a more systematic footing. The president remarked that Taiwan and mainland China have signed 15 agreements over the past two years and seven months, a total of 370 flights ply cross-strait routes each week, and annual bilateral trade exceeds US$100 billion. In stark contrast to the Korean Peninsula, which is still under threat of war, confrontation between Taiwan and mainland China has given way to reconciliation and negotiation. Meanwhile, last year some 1.4 million mainland Chinese tourists and businessmen visited Taiwan, while over 5 million Taiwanese traveled to mainland China, and the president said that Taiwan this year plans on allowing mainland Chinese students to pursue studies here, which will hopefully lay the foundation for long-lasting peace. The president feels that the direction of these developments is positive for Taiwan, mainland China, other Asia-Pacific nations, and Canada. He furthermore expressed his desire to see a continued increase in interaction and exchanges between Taiwan and Canada, paving the way for closer bilateral relations.
The delegation was led by Member of Parliament Mark Warawa, who also serves as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, and was escorted to the Presidential Office by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ssu-tsun Shen to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Advisor Tung Kuo-yu.