Charles Garrett

Taiwan Britain Business Council

Each year Taiwanese and British companies come together in London or Taipei for the Taiwan-Britain Business Council (TBBC). The main aim of the TBBC is to generate new business opportunities and so help to build our trade and investment relationship. This year the programme, featuring a video-conference with the UK Minister for Trade Mervyn Davies, drew over 200 representatives of British and Taiwanese companies from three sectors - infrastructure, ICT and financial services. Mervyn Davies knows Taiwan well from his time as Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank and spoke enthusiastically about ideas for generating new business. The key now is to follow up, to ensure that the enthusiasm and ideas that the TBBC produced in two days get converted into better trade figures.

The 11th Joint Meeting of Taiwan Britain Business Council was held from 8-9 June 2009 in Taipei.

There was one theme that came up time and again at the TBBC, in workshops, during the site visits, over lunch or dinner or just in the many networking conversations that went on throughout the event: Visa-Free Access. Since March ths year, most Taiwanese passport-holders have no longer needed a visa for visits of less than six months to the UK. Although it is too early to say exactly how much this has increased travel to Britain, it is clear from talking to travel agents that the number of Taiwanese travelling to the UK is going to be much higher this year than in 2008. And judging by conversations I had at the TBBC, business - both Taiwanese and British - has welcomed it enthusiastically. For investors and exporters alike, this has been a very popular step forward.

Posted at 14:20 06 July 2009 by Charles Garrett  |  Comments[2]