President Ma Ying-jeou says that Taiwan hopes to sign trade pacts with 60% of the world’s countries by 2020. Ma was speaking Monday during a meeting with two researchers from Washington-based think tank Heritage Foundation.
Ma said that Taiwan relies heavily on foreign trade and the country has seen its trade volume grow after inking trade pacts with China, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. The president said that Taiwan hopes to sign Free Trade Agreements and Economic Cooperation Agreements with more trading partners in the future.
“We are hoping to expand our participation in regional economic integration," said Ma. "We hope to sign Free Trade Agreements or Economic Cooperation Agreements with 60% of the world’s countries by 2020. We are also looking forward to the resumption of multilateral trade talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership this year. We also hope that there will be progress on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership’s plan to open up the participation in the [regional trade body] to non-ASEAN member countries."
President Ma told the two researchers -- Terry Miller and Anthony Kim – that Taiwan also hopes to sign a bilateral investment agreement with the United States.