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.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS