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TAITRA Inks LOI with USFCS to Enhance Bilateral Trade and Investment

2014/04/02 | By Steve Chuang

To enhance cooperation on bilateral trade and investment between Taiwan and the U.S., Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), a semi-official export promoter, formally signed a letter of intent (LOI) with the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service (USFCS) on March 26, 2014 in Taipei.

This LOI is certainly significant for economic relations between the two countries, given that Taiwan is U.S.'s eighth partner to sign such LOI, following Brazil, South Korea, China, etc. It also represents further expansion in cooperation after TAITRA inked another LOI with USFCS for the Pacific Bridge Initiative in October 2012.

TAITRA chairman, C.K. Wang, says that the LOI for Pacific Bridge Initiative has effectively helped increase collaboration between Taiwanese and U.S. enterprises for two years; and the signing of the latest one shows close economic ties between Taiwan and the U.S., as well as shared determination to keep boosting bilateral trade and investment.

The new LOI is focused partly on enhancing trade of machinery and other intermediate goods, and partly on stimulating mutual investment to accelerate industrial upgrading and transformation and strengthen local enterprises' global competitiveness.

The U.S. is now Taiwan's third-largest trade partner. According to statistics compiled by Taiwan Customs, bilateral trade reached US$57.76556 billion in 2013. For the first two months of 2014, Taiwan-US trade totaled US$8.87683 billion, including US$4.815 billion of exports and US$4.06183 billion of imports, up 4.7% and down 10.7%, respectively, compared to the same period of last year. (SC)