A delegation comprising about 65 officials and businesspeople is preparing to visit Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia next month to explore economic and trade opportunities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The plan was first reported by Chinese-language online news outlet Up Media on Wednesday last week, but the ministry had refused to provide details about the trip until yesterday.
Led by National Development Council (NDC) Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), the delegation would travel to the three nations on a chartered flight from Oct. 20 to 30, Department of European Affairs Director-General Remus Chen (陳立國) told a news conference at the ministry in Taipei.
Photo: National Development Council
Since Czech Senate Speaker Milos Vystrcil led an 89-person delegation to Taiwan last year, the nation has deepened its ties with central and eastern European countries in various areas, Chen said, thanking Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland for their donations of COVID-19 vaccines.
The delegation would comprise government officials and business representatives from sectors such as information and communication technology, precision medicine and electric vehicles, he said.
Some disease prevention specialists would accompany the delegation during the visit, he added.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
The delegation is to explore opportunities for cooperation on smart machinery and smart city infrastructure — pertinent to the three nations’ strength in heavy industries — as well as the digital economy, start-ups and biotechnology, NDC Department of Overall Planning Director-General Connie Chang (張惠娟) said.
A Slovak delegation had planned to visit Taiwan in May, but due to a local COVID-19 outbreak the visit was rescheduled.
During the visit to Slovakia, the delegation would discuss the planned Taiwan trip with their counterparts, Chen said.
Asked about the progress of Lithuania’s plan to open a representative office in Taipei, Chen said the establishment is awaiting Lithuanian government administrative and legal procedures, and that the ministry is awaiting information from Vilnius before it could provide more details.
Preparations for Taiwan’s plan to establish a representative office in Lithuania are running smoothly, he said, adding that the ministry would share more information in due course.
Despite external “coercion,” Taiwan and Lithuania would not falter in their determination to develop their ties, Chen said, without naming China.
Since Lithuania in July decided to host a Taiwanese representative office, Beijing has been pressuring the Baltic nation to drop the plan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as well as many lawmakers in the European Parliament, have voiced their support for Lithuania’s plan.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS