Competition, Cooperation

Jeong Man-ki (left), vice chairman of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), and a high-ranking official of the Chinese National Federation of Industries (right) show signed memorandums of understanding on economic and trade cooperation between their two organizations in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 22 (local time).
Jeong Man-ki (left), vice chairman of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), and a high-ranking official of the Chinese National Federation of Industries (right) show signed memorandums of understanding on economic and trade cooperation between their two organizations in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 22 (local time).

The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and Taiwan’s leading economic organizations have joined hands to strengthen economic cooperation and expand trade. With the popularity of Korean-made automobiles growing in Taiwan and Korean tourists ranking first in foreign tourist arrivals to Taiwan, they united to further expand exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

The KITA said on May 23 that it signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) on economic and trade cooperation with the Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce and the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI) in Taipei, Taiwan, for two days from May 22 (local time). Founded in 1946, the Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce is the largest commercial organization and one of the key economic organizations in Taiwan. It has 1.6 million member companies in the fields of trade, retail, distribution, and finance. The CNFI is the largest business organization in Taiwan’s industrial sectors, which include semiconductors, automobiles, steel, and energy. It has 157 groups and 110,000 enterprises.

The two sides have agreed that there are many areas where Korea and Taiwan can cooperate as they compete fiercely in the global trade market. “Consumer goods trade accounts for only three percent of total trade between Korea and Taiwan. There is a lot of room for the two nations to expand consumer goods trade.” As of 2021, the percentage of Korea’s consumer goods trade with the United States in its total trade stood at 21.4 percent, 8.4 percent with China, and 7.5 percent with Japan. South Korea and Taiwan have focused on the trade of capital goods and intermediate goods.

“People-to-people exchanges are also increasing, with South Korea recently surpassing Japan in the rankings of foreign tourists visiting Taiwan,” said a high-ranking official of the CNFI. “Taiwan and Korea have similar industrial structures and have been focusing on having competition rather than promoting cooperation. But Taiwan and Korea should expand industrial cooperation down the road.”

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