A Canadian official said he was “very confident” of finalizing a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with Taiwan by the end of this year, during a meeting hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade on Tuesday.
Ed Jager, senior trade commissioner of the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei, offered the forecast in light of the fact that trade discussions between Taipei and Ottawa were proceeding smoothly, as well as Taiwan’s position in Canada’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy.
Regarding the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Jager said he hoped Taiwan could become a member, noting that it had met the high standards set by the international community for the trade pact.
Jager said that Canada and Taiwan had cooperated perfectly in the past, giving Taipei 101’s 660-tonne tuned mass damper, designed by the Canadian firm Motioneering and fabricated in Taiwan, as an example.
Meanwhile, British Columbian Minister of State for Trade Jagrup Brar, who also attended Tuesday’s meeting, said he hoped to deepen the relationship between his province and Taiwan, noting that British Columbia had opened a trade and investment office in Taipei this year, given that exports from British Columbia account for nearly half of Canada’s outbound shipments to Taiwan.
Bilateral Taiwan-British Columbia trade exchanges centered around technology, clean energy, agriculture, fisheries and coal.
From Taiwan’s business community, Huang Wen-rong (黃文榮), secretary general of the Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei, pitched the country as an investment destination, saying that the association planned to send a group of nine industry representatives to visit Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto in the coming days.
Aisha Yang, head of vitamin seller Herbaland, and Michael Tan, deputy chief financial officer of motorcycle company Damon Motors, both noted that Taiwan’s innovative and efficient business environment shared identical values with Canada, making it a fitting place for Canadian firms such as their own to set up shop.
Angel Liu (劉立欣), director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver, said while people may be concerned that tensions in the Taiwan Strait could affect businesses, Taiwan was a democracy with the same shared values as other democratic nations.
“For people who want to run a long-term business, this is exactly what they need,” Liu said.
Source: Focus Taiwan
