In response to Apple Daily's report that the government's New Southbound Policy hasn't achieved a good result, the Office of Trade Negotiation of the Executive Yuan stated on 1st of December that the New Southbound Policy, which can create a mutually beneficial win-win cooperation model between Taiwan and our new southbound partners and integrate the government and the public to promote regional integrations, is one of the most important external policies to Taiwan’s future development.
The Office of Trade Negotiation indicated that since the U.S.-China trade war began in 2018, the global supply chain has been reorganized. Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy not only give timely responses to the new Asian political and economic structure and regional visions of various countries, such as the “Indo- Pacific Strategy” proposed by United States and Japan…etc., but has got more opportunities and potentials for cooperation with other countries, fully confirming that the New Southbound Policy is in the right direction.
“Apart from The New Southbound Policy being part of Taiwan’s overall external strategy, there are still many important projects. In the past three years, with the mutual efforts of the people and the government and through various aspects of cooperation, these projects have gradually produced a marked effect. In the fields of medical treatment, agriculture, tourism, science and technology and culture, Taiwan’s soft power will be brought into full play to deepen the substantial diverse relationships with the New Southbound Partners.” The Office of Trade Negotiation added.
The Office of Trade Negotiation stated that the achievements of the third quarter of the New Southbound Policy in 2019 has achieved good results since it was promoted. For example, Taiwan’s got more than 1.9 million visitors from the New Southbound countries, and a total of 1,082 domestic manufacturers have obtained Halal Certification. In terms of e-commerce, the New Southbound e-commerce platforms (eBay Australia, Indonesia blibli, Vietnam TIKI, Thailand PChome Thai) in the Taiwan Pavilion has accumulated more than 277,000 items. Additionally, in terms of engineering output, Taiwanese companies have obtained foreign bids totalling about 23.4 billion NTD; in terms of student exchange, nearly 52,000 students from New Southbound countries came to Taiwan last year with an annual increase of 25%. The number of Taiwanese students that went to the New Southbound countries also surpassed 21,000 for the first time. In terms of international medical services (non-health insurance self-financed visits), up to the end of June, about 67,000 patients from the New Southbound countries visited Taiwan, accounting for 37.9% of all international medical patients. Besides, we have also actively been discussing and updating bilateral investment protection agreements to greatly enhance the protection of Taiwanese businessmen.
Furthermore, the next step of the New Southbound Policy includes assisting domestic small and medium enterprises to win the New Southbound market, subsidizing college students to work in New Southbound national enterprises for work experiences, promoting agricultural exports, increasing the number of New Southbound tourists coming to Taiwan, and expanding New Southbound international customers for medical treatment, assisting domestic engineering companies to win the New Southbound engineering business opportunities, assisting Taiwanese manufacturers in investment and trade of the new southbound market. The government will uphold the spirit of mutual help and continue to cultivate the projects of the New Southbound policy to help Taiwan and the new Southbound countries build a broader and deeper substantial relationship.
