Japan’s representative to Taiwan says he wants to see a free trade agreement between Taiwan and Japan soon. Numata Mikio was speaking at a Taiwan-Japan Investment Forum hosted by the economics ministry on Tuesday.
Taiwan’s economics minister John Deng said that academic exchanges relevant to an FTA are still underway. Deng said he hopes they can build a good foundation so that the two governments can begin talks soon.
"Academic studies have been going on for a while. These will help us to understand the benefits for signing the FTA for both sides,"said Deng.
"We hope this work will be a good foundation for future FTA talks and that government talks will begin soon."
Japan’s deputy representative in Taipei, Hanaki Izuru, said that over 80% of Japanese companies in Taiwan are profitable. Japanese companies like to invest in Taiwan because salaries are not growing as fast as those in China, and Taiwanese employees tend to have high-tech skills.
In the past 4 years, Japan has made annual investments of more than US$400 million in Taiwan. Tuesday’s forum saw over 30 Japanese companies and over 100 Taiwanese companies attend.