Diplomacyindia.com

New Delhi, April 18 (IANS) In a bid to expand trade ties with India, Taiwan will host its first-ever promotional event – Taiwan Expo – here next month, according to an announcement by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) on Tuesday.

At the curtain raiser event here, TAITRA also announced the opening of its Delhi office. The private sector body has three existing offices in India — in Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

Though India and Taiwan do not have official diplomatic relations, the two sides signed a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement in 2002.

TAITRA Chairman James C.F. Huang told reporters here that Taiwan had earlier not paid much attention to India owing to factors of distance and lack of understanding of Indian society and culture.

However, India’s recent economic reforms and its impressive economic growth had made Taiwanese companies understand the importance of India, he said.

As head of the private trade promotion body, Huang has led as many as seven business delegations to India in the last year.

“Our Delhi office will hold the first-ever Taiwan Expo in India over May 17-19 to showcase the latest Taiwan technology and products.

“With the opening of our Delhi office, we will also be signing an MoU on trade promotion with Ficci (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry),” he said.

He added that TAITRA had already signed an agreement with India’s Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles for enhancing partnership on electric vehicle development.

Noting that Taiwan had contributed in the development of the industrial base of countries like China and Indonesia and that there are over 100,000 companies from his country operating in China, Huang said that Taiwan seeks to create similar kind of industrial hubs in India, particularly in areas of Taiwanese expertise like petrochemicals, machine tools, green energy and smart cities.

Bilateral trade increased from $1.2 billion in 2000 to $6 billion in 2016 and there are over 100 Taiwanese companies working in different sectors of the Indian economy, he added.