Taiwan’s president receives key to Garden City…
On the second day of his visit, Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou was whisked off to Belmopan this morning for a full day of official business. The president, accompanied by a delegation of government officials and press, was given a warm welcome as he arrived in the capital city. At a brief ceremony at Independence Plaza, the president received the symbolic keys to the city from Belmopan’s Mayor, Simeon Lopez. Ma then proceeded to the National Assembly where he spoke for about thirty minutes, paying homage to the relations with Belize and of developments in Taiwan since his administration took office.
Ma Ying-jeou, President Republic of China on Taiwan
“Based precisely on ideas that dispute should be resolved, I have made every effort to improve relations between Taiwan and mainland, which had been locked in military conflict and political confrontation for over sixty years. I have made every effort to do so since my inauguration of May twentieth last year. Our countries seek to build mutual trust, shelf the dispute, fight disagreement despite differences and create a win-win situation. Taiwan hopes to continue its friendly talks with mainland China so as to further resolve our differences and launch regular talk. Thus far, three rounds of talks have been concluded and nine agreements have been signed. The issues covered by these nine agreements are very important to Taiwan and concerns the well-being of our people, including regular, now daily flights between Taiwan and the mainland; first time in sixty years and the opening of Taiwan to tourists from mainland China. Now, there’s three thousand mainland tourists at least everyday. Direct air and sea transport, other topics can focus on postal cooperation, food safety operations and the fight against crime and mutual judicial processing. I think mutual judicial processing is very important for Taiwan to achieve consensus. Particularly, we also agree on financial cooperation to allow banks of the other side to enter into our region. We expect that by engaging in cooperation beneficial to both sides, we can normalize our economic relations. This is the first step to an enduring peace and prosperity between the two sides of Taiwan. We are calling for a robust initiative to replant trees for more than fifty thousand acres of lowland over the next eight years. The goal is to protect the environment, conserve energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions to abate the impact of climate change. I hope that Taiwan will have the opportunity to strengthen its cooperation with countries in Central America and the Caribbean, especially in the areas of green energy development.”
