MESSAGE
Ambassador Tien Chung-kwang Representative of Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India
Celebrating the 107th National Day of the Republic of China
It is a great honor to welcome you to join us in celebration of the 107th National Day( Double Tenth) of the Republic of China( Taiwan).
Under the leadership of the President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office on May 20, 2016, the ROC( Taiwan) has implemented a number of important reforms and pursued a new economic model for sustainable development based on the core values of innovation, employment, and equitable distribution.
Last year, Taiwan’ s economy grew 2.86 percent, a three-year high. The unemployment rate for the first half of 2018 fell to 3.66 percent, a 17-year low. The stock market has been above 10,000 points for 16 months, and exports have increased to a new 7-year high. Average wages are also at a historic high. Taiwan was the 22nd-largest economy in the world and the 18th largest exporter and importer worldwide in 2017.
Under President Tsai’ s New Southbound Policy( NSP), which aims at promoting deeper and more diverse relationships with 16 Southeast-and-South Asian countries as well as Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan’ s trade with those trade partners last year grew 15.61 percent to US $ 110.9 billion. Taiwan-India bilateral trade, in particular, increased 27 percent to US $ 6.4 billion in 2017. We are also seeing progress in people-to-people exchanges and tourism, with 2.28 million visits from NSP partner countries to Taiwan in 2017, a growth of nearly 30 percent.
Upholding the core values of freedom, democracy, and human rights, Taiwan plays a vital role in ensuring regional peace and stability and seeks to make greater contributions to the Indo-Pacific, safeguard the free and open regional community, and protect a rules-based international order. Looking to the future, Taiwan will carry out reforms to ensure national prosperity and people’ s wellbeing. Taiwan will also bolster comprehensive exchanges and substantive cooperation with India and other partner countries to create mutually beneficial win-win for all nations.