By Secretary’s Office (External Communication Team)
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Minister of economic affairs Wang Meihua and deputy director general Maive RUTE of the Directorate General of Growth (DG GROW) of the European Commission co-chaired the “9th Taiwan-EU Industrial Dialogue Conference” in Taipei on May 31, 2023.
The two sides discussed industrial policies, Taiwan-EU In-depth exchanges on topics such as cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises and industrial clusters, robot regulations, R&D cooperation, and industrial skills.
The Taiwan-EU Industrial dialogue conference is the most important dialogue platform to promote industrial cooperation between the two sides. At the last Taiwan-EU industrial dialogue conference, minister Wang Meihua invited the European side to lead a delegation to visit Taiwan this year to hold a meeting, and held the European Innovation Week (EIW) event again after five years of absence.
The deputy director general was invited to personally lead a delegation to Taiwan. In addition to officials from the European Commission, the delegation also included representatives from 11 industrial clusters from EU member states covering ICT, semiconductors, digital industries, and robotics. EIW activities.
During the industrial dialogue meeting, the European side shared with Taiwan, recent important industrial policy developments such as the EU Net Zero Industry Law and the Key Raw Materials Law.
Taiwan also explained to the European side Taiwan’s policy direction of actively strengthening energy security and improving supply chain resilience. Both parties believe that they share the same philosophy and will further strengthen cooperation.
In addition, since the European side reached a political agreement on the new machinery regulations in December last year, the ministry of economic affairs also invited EU officials to hold a symposium with Taiwan’s industry to help businesses grasp the provisions of the bill, and through the robot working group meeting, discuss the new EU machinery laws Interact with future AI bills to communicate.
Minister Wang Meihua said that the experience of the EU will serve as an important reference for my country to formulate relevant norms in the future, and will continue to communicate with the EU and promote cooperation between the two sides.
Taiwan attaches great importance to R&D cooperation with the EU, and is a long-term partner of the EU’s.
“Horizon Europe” scientific research program. For example, cooperation frameworks have been established in the field of 5G in the past. In the future, Taiwan will also develop opportunities to cooperate with the EU on advanced 6G technology in other research fields, and assist both parties to achieve digital and green transformation.
This year coincides with the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the European Economic and Trade Network (Enterprise Europe Network, EEN). In addition to sharing the results of EEN’s cooperation in business matching and industrial cluster cooperation, both parties affirmed their role in assisting Taiwan and EU SMEs to cooperate and open up new opportunities. Business opportunities are quite helpful.
In addition to thanking deputy director general for leading a delegation to visit Taiwan and personally experiencing the beauty of Taiwan, minister Wang also expressed the hope that more international friends will come to Taiwan to understand the importance of Taiwan in the global supply chain, and emphasized that countries with similar ideas cooperate to maintain the Taiwan Strait. Peace is about sustaining global prosperity.
Bilateral trade and investment between Taiwan and the EU have grown significantly.
The EU is Taiwan’s fourth largest trading partner. In 2022, the total bilateral trade volume will exceed US$75 billion, an increase of 9.46 percent over the previous year.
In terms of investment, the EU is the largest source of foreign capital for Taiwan. From 1952 to 2022, the EU invested a total of 549 percent in Taiwan; billion US dollars, of which the investment amount from 2018 to 2022 accounts for 35.4 percent of the total accumulated investment over the years.
