President Tsai Ing-wen met with outgoing British Office Taipei Rep. Catherine Nettleton at the Presidential Office Dec. 1 in Taipei City, expressing the government and people’s sincere appreciation for the representative’s contributions toward enhancing Taiwan-U.K. relations across the board.
 
Since taking office in late 2016, Nettleton has been working tirelessly to promote economic and trade relationships between the two sides by facilitating reciprocal high-level visits and the establishment of official exchange mechanisms in agriculture, energy and smart city development, Tsai said.
 
A case in point is bilateral collaboration on wind power generation, the president said, adding that Taiwan set up its first related training center in September 2019 and is leading Asia in offshore wind farm development.
 
The Taiwan-U.K. economic partnership is progressing apace as well, with the two sides convening trade talks just last month, during which they pledged to develop even stronger business and investment ties going forward, she added.
 
Nettleton has taken a strong interest in the government’s bilingual country 2030 policy and worked with the Ministry of Education to improve English language education in Taiwan, Tsai said, praising the representative’s diligence and dedication.
 
The president also took the opportunity to thank the U.K. for supporting Taiwan’s successful bid to participate in the Global Vaccine Summit hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London this June. The country looks forward to working even more closely with the U.K. to overcome post-pandemic challenges, she added.
 
As the U.K. is set to host the 2021 Conference of the Parties attended by signatories of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Tsai said she looks forward to the country’s support for Taiwan’s participation, which would allow the two sides to further deepen cooperation on energy transformation. (SFC-E)
 
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