President Ma Ying-jeou on the afternoon of October 6 met with a delegation from the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade (INTA). The president, on behalf of the government and people of the ROC, expressed a cordial welcome and deep appreciation to the visitors on their trip to Taiwan and for their longstanding support for Taiwan.
President Ma remarked that the European Parliament has passed over 10 resolutions friendly to Taiwan over the past three years, including supporting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations and activities, and granting Taiwanese visa-free entry to states party to the Schengen Agreement. In addition, the European Parliament on May 11 this year passed a resolution advocating the signing of an economic cooperation agreement between the European Union (EU) and the ROC, he noted.
The president stated that Taiwan and the EU have consistently maintained close economic and trade ties. As of the end of April of this year, European companies had invested approximately US$30 billion in Taiwan, which comprises over 30% of all foreign investment here, he said. President Ma commented that bilateral trade is growing extremely rapidly, pointing out that trade last year stood at €39 billion, which was a growth of 39% from the previous year. Meanwhile, the volume of bilateral trade in the first eight months of this year had already reached €35.8 billion, equivalent to an increase of 16.4% from the same period last year, he said. The president remarked that this points to the steady growth in trade between the two sides. He added that trade volume is sure to rise significantly if one day the two sides are able to sign an economic cooperation accord.
President Ma stated that the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) has long supported the improvement in relations between Taiwan and mainland China. He mentioned that the ECCT supported the signing last year of the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between Taiwan and mainland China, which also was supported by American and Japanese companies. The president stated that a Japanese think tank carried out a survey that showed Japanese and Taiwanese companies working together in entering the mainland Chinese market have a survival rate of 88.2%, while Japanese companies that go it alone in investing in mainland China have a survival rate of 79.8%, which is a difference of nearly 10 percentage points. This is one of the main reasons, he said, that Japan and Taiwan last month signed an investment agreement. The pact, he mentioned, will have enormous benefits for Japanese companies looking to enter the mainland market.
President Ma said that the European Parliament's Group of the European People's Party on June 30 held a large-scale public forum, with participants expressing their strong support for the signing of an economic cooperation agreement between the ROC and the EU. Taiwan, the president explained, can serve as a gateway to mainland China, and this has especially become the case in the wake of the signing of the ECFA. He expressed his hopes that European companies in Taiwan can best utilize the ECFA to create conditions that would help to foster even greater business opportunities in mainland China. He also mentioned that European and Taiwan companies could form strategic alliances to jointly develop the mainland Chinese market.
As Double Tenth National Day is around the corner, the visitors expressed their congratulations to President Ma. They also said they hope that the EU and Taiwan will forge even closer cooperation in economics and trade, adding that the European Parliament will continue to provide support.
The delegation was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Deputy Foreign Minister Lyushun Shen (沈呂巡) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Chih-kung Liu (劉志攻).