The "EU-Taiwan Trade and Investment Dialogue" was upgraded to the ministerial level last year. On April 28 this year, Taiwan's Economic Minister Mei-Hua WANG and the European Commission's Director-General of DG Trade Sabine WEYAND co-chaired the dialogue online. Both sides engaged in in-depth exchanges on important issues regarding economic and trade cooperation.

The dialogue this year covered a wide range of issues, with the aim of deepening the economic and trade partnership between Taiwan and the EU. The issues included strategic trade and investment security, offshore wind power investment, development of electric buses, and cooperation on concrete digital trade facilitation project. Both sides had thorough exchanges on these issues and achieved fruitful results.

Minister Wang emphasized that since Taiwan and the EU are like-minded partners, they have developed close economic and trade relations. In addition, the EU is Taiwan's largest source of foreign investment. By facing common challenges in the international geopolitical landscape, Minister Wang expressed the hope that Taiwan and the EU could creatively promote concrete ways to deepen our bilateral partnership and establish a friendly investment environment.

For example, regarding the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which was passed in April, Minister Wang mentioned that the EU is Taiwan's main export market for screws and bolts. As a result, the Minister hoped that both sides could continue to engage in dialogues in order to reduce potential impacts CBAM may have on Taiwan's exports to the EU.

Moreover, to promote digital trade facilitation, Taiwan and the EU have reached a consensus on conducting technical discussions on such issues as e-invoicing and e-signature. Minister Wang noted that this would enable Taiwan's digital trade to align with international standards.