New Delhi: Taiwan's Representative to India Baushuan Ger on Friday said that Taiwan looks forward to joining hands with India to strengthen the global supply chain to safeguard peace, stability across the Strait and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific and to maintain the rules-based international order.

The Taiwanese representative said that over the years, India, Taiwan have nurtured a natural and reliable partnership. "Our two countries may be thousands of miles apart, but our shared commitment to democracy, freedom, respect of human rights and rule of law is instrumental in our joint efforts to deepen bilateral cooperation across the board," he said while addressing the Reception in Celebration of Taiwan's 112th National Day.

The Taiwanese representative said: "In addition to our Chennai office in 2012, I am pleased to announce that our third mission, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre in Mumbai, will open early next year."

"Through these three missions, we look forward to working closely with our partners across India to bring our bilateral ties to historic heights," he added.

"Given the convergence of Taiwan's "New Southbound Policy" and India's "Act East Policy", on the economic front, the bilateral trade volume reached a record high of 8.4 billion USD in 2022. It's a 10 per cent increase from the year before. India is Taiwan's 17th largest trading partner. Under the "Make in India" policy, the total investment of Taiwanese enterprises in India has exceeded 4 billion USD, covering areas from footwear, machinery, and automobile components to petrochemical and ICT products."

He said: "With mutual agreements signed last year focusing on intellectual property rights, product standardization and traditional medicine, we look forward to further expanding trade and investment with more mutually beneficial arrangements to be concluded in the coming years."

He added that Taiwan has so far, set up 29 Taiwan Education Centers across Indian university campuses, where over 12,000 Indian students have taken up Mandarin courses taught by teachers from Taiwan.

"Taiwan and India have also made great strides in the domain of science and technology cooperation with 115 joint research projects successfully implemented over the past years," he said.