President Ma Ying-jeou is calling for closer trade ties with Japan. He was speaking Monday during a meeting with a visiting Japanese lawmaker, Sakurada Yoshitaka.
Ma said although Taiwan and Japan do not have formal diplomatic ties, the two sides have signed 11 cooperative agreements over the past two years. The agreements are in the areas of fishing, tourism, nuclear safety, investment protection, entry and exit management, and intellectual property rights in the field of biotechnology.
With bilateral trade volume reaching 55.6 billion US dollars last November, Ma said Taiwan is hoping sign an economic partnership agreement as well as a pact to avoid double taxation with Japan in the future.
The president called Taiwan’s current relations with Japan the “most stable and close” since the two sides broke off diplomatic ties in 1972.