Taiwan India Relations
General Background and Recent Developments
When the Indian government initiated “Look East Policy” in early 1991, Taiwan and India started to approach each other and loosen visa restrictions. In 1995 the two countries established representative offices in each other’s capitals, namely Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India (TECC) for ROC (Taiwan) in New Delhi and India-Taipei Association (ITA) for India in Taipei.
In December 2012, Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Chennai was established. Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Mumbai is scheduled to be open in 2024 as part of the ongoing efforts to facilitate bilateral exchanges in the areas of trade, investment, technology, culture and education with West India. Three retired Indian service chiefs visited Taiwan in August 2023 to take part in the Ketagalan Forum to discuss defence and security issues in the Indo-Pacific. In September 2023, the annual bilateral Economic Cooperative Consultation was held in Taipei. Deputy Minister of Education in November 2023 led eleven Taiwanese universities to ink 50 MoUs in Delhi on talent training for semiconductor with 40 Indian universities. In December 2023, while Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Science & Technology visited India to co-chair the annual bilateral cooperation dialogue, Taiwan, India and the U.S. staged a workshop on cybersecurity under the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) in Delhi.
Taiwan government actively promotes the "New Southbound Policy," assisting businesses in diversifying their presence overseas. India, benefiting from a demographic dividend and robust domestic market demand, is considered a crucial partner country under our "New Southbound Policy".
Through the Taiwan-India Economic Consultation rotating in the two capitals, Taiwan and India aim to further deepen economic and trade relations. Extensive discussions cover various topics, including economic and trade development, investment, industrial cooperation, and talent exchange. Additionally, initiatives such as the Taiwan-India CEO Roundtable, the Taiwan-India Industrial Collaboration Summit, and the Taiwan-India Joint Business Councils Meeting are employed to facilitate increased communication between associations and private sectors from both sides.
These efforts aim to assist Taiwanese enterprises in cultivating the Indian market, diversifying their overseas market expansion, and utilizing India's vast domestic market as a foundation for expanding their global economic and trade networks.
Trade, Commerce and Investment Relationships
In 2023, the total bilateral trade between Taiwan and India amounted to approximately 8.224 billion US dollars, a decline of 2.78% than the year before. India ranks the 16th largest trading partner for Taiwan. Taiwan's exports to India reached 6.013 billion US dollars, marking a 13% growth and positioning India the 12th largest export market for Taiwan. On the import side, Taiwan imported goods worth 2.211 billion US dollars from India, a decrease of 29.62% than 2022. India stands as the 25th largest import source for Taiwan.
As of the end of February 2024, approximately 200 Taiwanese businesses have made investments, primarily in the electronics, information and communication technology, petrochemicals, steel, shipping, footwear manufacturing, automotive and motorcycle components, finance, and construction industries.
Collaboration of small and medium enterprises is another focal area. Both sides have strengthened cooperation in important areas of policy sharing, technological assistance, innovation, entrepreneurship and business incubation, market development, as well as capacity and capability building.
Education Cooperation
Over the past decade, over 500 Indian students have availed themselves of scholarships offered by the ROC (Taiwan) government. At present there are 100,000 foreign students studying in Taiwan, of whom 3,000 students are from India. Foreign students are encouraged to study in Taiwan, and India is one of the countries whose students we actively pursue.
In 2019, Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan signed an MOU with Association of Indian Universities, by which academic degrees and certificates recognized by one will be recognized by the other, allowing for greater research collaboration and exchanges by teachers and school administrators.
Currently 31 Taiwan Education Centers (TEC) were set up in various universities in India with teachers from Taiwan teaching Mandarin. The TECs in Indian also provide Mandarin courses for senior Indian officials, tourism promoters and employees working for Taiwan enterprises in India.
Cultural Exchanges
Cultural exchanges between Taiwan and India have been on the increase in recent years. In addition to the Taiwan films being screened annually in major films festivals of India, performing art groups from Taiwan have also been welcomed by Indian audience. Ten Drum Art Percussion Group visited India in 2013. U Theatre in 2014, and Ming Hwa Yuan Art & Culture Group and Taiwan Bamboo Orchestra in 2015. The Youth Ambassadors delegation sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited India to promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges in 2014, 2015 and 2017, respectively. Da-Guan Dance Theater of the National Taiwan University of Arts, TAI Body Theater and Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra also visited India in 2017. In 2018, the Youth Ambassadors delegation visited India and a Taiwan Film Festival was held by TECC in New Delhi. In 2022, the Dance Troupe of the College of Indigenous Studies from National Dong Hwa University was invited to attend an international folk culture event Udbhav Utsav in Madhya Pradesh. While Taiwanese new immigrant Martin Musa Musaubach was invited to perform fusion music at IIT Mumbai, post-pandemic Taiwan Film Festival were again successfully organized in December 2022 and 2023. Ming Hwa Yuan Arts & Cultural Group performed at the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK) in February, 2023, and Zhen Yun Lin Ge Puppet Theater was invited by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations to attend the 9th Indo-International Dance & Music Festival in October in the same year.
Science & Technology Cooperation
The MOU on Scientific and Technological Cooperation was signed between TECC and ITA in 2007. Bilateral joint meetings and academic seminars are held annually. As of January 2024, a total of 130 projects and joint proposals have been carried out while 27 seminars have been held bilaterally.
The cooperation in science & technology contains a wide range of fields such as agricultural and food science; new material for sustainable energy and storage devices; health care including functional genomics, drug development and biomedical devices; earth, atmosphere and ocean sciences including disaster management & digital technology for societal applications and cloud computing.
