Charles Garrett

Deputy Director of British Trade and Cultural Office

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Tuesday 23 June, 2009

Taiwan and Europe.

European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei celebrated its Europe Day last month with a massive dinner. 640 guests came to hear President Ma speak about Taiwan and Europe. 

President Ma addressing guests

To me, the relationship between Taiwan and Europe has always felt like "tomorrow's relationship". The relationship has developed steadily in recent years:  Europe is now the single largest foreign investor in Taiwan; Taiwanese are studying in ever increasing numbers at European universities (mostly in the UK of course), and so on.  President Ma gave more examples in his speech on 14 May. 

But still, we could do so much more: Europe's Single Market is the world's biggest economy (over 500 million rich, sophisticated consumers) and yet only 1% of Taiwan's investment goes there.  We need to do more to exploit that potential.

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It's good to see you blogging Charles. Your comments are appreciated by us civilians.

Posted by Rick Monday on June 29, 2009 at 05:13 PM CST #

Do you have copy of his speech? Reminds me of the ECIS dinner in 1998...

Posted by Richard Tangye on June 29, 2009 at 07:43 PM CST #

In market dynamics the adage 'nature abhors a vacuum' may hold true; there is no obvious vacuum in Europe for Taiwanese business to fill which is not so say there are not huge opportunities. It must then be the role of government to change the dynamic - to apply pressure or suction, rather. But over the past 5 - 10 years, we have seen a drastic reduction in resources dedicated to Taiwan by RDAs and the like. Seems as if they've all followed the Taiwanese to China. Well, as you sew, so shall you reap... Or put another way, you could say that only 1 of Taiwan's investment goes to Europe because it is not a priority for Europe. Poor Taiwan - the international orphan syndrome is going to be hard to shake off...

Posted by Ashley Hines on June 29, 2009 at 11:04 PM CST #

Hey Charles, Good to know that you started your blog and will be looking forwards to reading more from you!!! ^_< Cheers, Rachel

Posted by Rachel Chan on June 30, 2009 at 02:05 PM CST #

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