TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday that a bilateral investment deal with the European Union has stalled, but Taiwan hopes to speed up progress.
The EU included Taiwan on its list of potential bilateral investment treaty trade partners in 2015, the year before President Tsai took office as president of Taiwan, but has not held talks with Taiwan on the issue since. .
The EU and its member states are Taiwan’s largest source of foreign investment but do not have formal diplomatic relations with democratically ruled Taiwan due to objections from China, which considers Taiwan to be one of its provinces. .
Speaking to a delegation from the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, Tsai said Taiwan and the EU should build a “resilient democratic alliance”.
“Taiwan aims to strengthen bilateral economic and trade exchanges, strengthen supply chain security, and accelerate the progress of the Taiwan-EU bilateral investment agreement. can be trusted to expand its investment,” she told the group, according to the president’s office.
The European Union has sought Taiwan, a major semiconductor producer, as one of the “like-minded” partners it wants to work with under the European Chip Law announced in February.
Delegation leader Anna Michelle Asimakoplow told Tsai that the EU and Taiwan share common values such as democracy and human rights.
“The EU recognizes that its trade and investment partnership with Taiwan is a strategic relationship with geopolitical implications,” said Ashimakopoulou.
“My colleagues in the European Parliament and I called on the (European) Commission to launch without delay an impact assessment, public consultation and scope study of a bilateral investment agreement between the EU and Taiwan,” she added. .
Less than a week after Taiwan and the EU held high-level trade talks in June, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) (2330.TW) announced plans to build a factory in Europe. He said he had no plans.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker and Asia’s most valuable public company, warned last year that it was in the early stages of considering a potential expansion into EU member state Germany, but has since made substantial gains. seems to have made no progress.
Reported by Ben Blanchard. Edited by Muralikumar Anantharaman
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