Address by Hon'ble Mr Kan Tan Chien, Chief Representative, Taiwan

Mr. Kumar - Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, GOI, Mr. Kalra, Additional Secretary General of FICCI,
Excellency Dr. Shih, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs; Mr. Kapur, Chairman of India-Taiwan Business Cooperation Committee, Dr. Lin, Chairman of Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is indeed a great pleasure and an honor for me to be associated with this prestigious event - the 9th Joint Meeting of India-Taiwan Business Cooperation Committee between Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association (CIECA).

First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to extend a cordial welcome to the Presence of Vice Minister, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Dr. Shih Yen-Shiang and Chairman of Institute for Information Industry, Dr.Lin Fern-Chin and distinguished delegates both from India as well as my home country, Taiwan, including many executives from important Taiwanese IT companies, who are well-known experts in IT industry. I also would like to express our heartful gratitude and profound thanks to the host counterpart of this joint meeting, India-Taiwan BCC of FICCI for making this event possible. It also would not have been possible to hold this joint meeting without the enthusiasm and efforts, and invaluable support and cooperation of both of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association (CIECA).

This Joint Business Cooperation Committee has entered into its 9th meeting, since the First Joint Business Meeting was held in the year of 1993. And the event of 2003 Joint Business Meeting marks another significant milestone in enhancing economic collaboration and promoting bilateral trade, investment and technology relations between India and Taiwan. Particularly, due to the absence of formal diplomatic relations between our two countries, there is a lack of an official and effective cooperative mechanism to combine and integrate the strengths of the governmental and private sectors to enhance all kinds of cooperative projects and economic relations between India and Taiwan, therefore these Joint Business Cooperation Committees play a key role in establishing such a mechanism on both sides.

Nevertheless, despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the cordial and substantive relations between India and Taiwan are not only continuously growing but are being further substantially strengthened. The two way trade between India and Taiwan has been increasing significantly and augmenting rapidly in the past few years. It has increased dramatically from US $ 399 million in 1991 to US $ 1,198 million in 2002. Particularly the first 7 months of 2003 have witnessed a growth of 17% over the corresponding period of 2002 at a total value of US$ 777 million. It is estimated that the volume of two way trade between our two countries will reach US $ 1,400 million this year, making Taiwan as India's 20th ranking trading partner.

Obviously, Taiwan and India's trade and investment represents only a very small portion of our respective foreign trade and foreign direct investment, so there is plenty of room for trade and investment to expand on each side.

Besides, there is still a tremendous scope for pragmatic interaction and collaboration in various fields and potential growth of bilateral relations between India and Taiwan owing to the complimentary and supplementary benefits with each other. The improvement of our bilateral relations is mutually beneficial and consistent with our long-term national interests. It is our belief that through the presentations and discussions of the joint business meeting this morning, we will be able to convert the potential into actuality.

According to NASSCOM's statistics, Indian software and services exports in 2002 amounted to US $ 10 billion. We understand that India occupies a leading role in the world, in tems of software technology and software specialists. Meanwhile, Taiwan hardware sector is extremely strong in terms of production value, with products like semiconductors, mask-ROM, IC masking, notebook computers, LCD monitors and so on occupying first place worldwide and IC design, motherboards, chip resistors and digital cameras ranking second worldwide. Taiwan's total production value of the IT hardware industry last year was around US $ 50 billion, that figure seems equivalent to expected software production value of India in 2008, Therefore, Taiwan's and India's IT sectors should be complementary and if we can establish better co-operation, both should be able to generate excellent performance.

On the auspicious occasion of the inauguration of 9th Joint Meeting of India-Taiwan Business Cooperation Committee between FICCI and CIECA, I take great pleasure in extending heartiest congratulations and wish this one-day meeting a great success and a trememndous achievement and I also wish all the best to you all.

Thank you,

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry
Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association