Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Wednesday, October 10, 2007 0:00 am TWN, By Michelle Hsu, Special to the China Post



	Last Friday, the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office's outgoing representative Maria Assunta Acilli called on Minister of Foreign Affairs James C.F. Huang prior to her departure from Taiwan in early ... Enlarge Photo

Sponsors
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.

Promote Taiwan's identity in all approaches: MOFA

Last Friday, the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office's outgoing representative Maria Assunta Acilli called on Minister of Foreign Affairs James C.F. Huang prior to her departure from Taiwan in early October. In her capacity as the Italian office head, Acilli was enthusiastic in sponsoring various art and cultural activities in Taiwan. During her last visit, she stressed the importance of cultural interactions to Huang and earnestly invited Taiwan to hold related activities in Italy as a means to help Italian people build up better understanding of Taiwanese culture.

"In fact," Huang said, "MOFA has taken it as one of its major tasks to strengthen cultural interactions with other countries." Taiwan has impressed the world with its economic miracle, technology development and democratic political system, but what most attract foreigners are Taiwanese culture, art, customs and way of life. "Cultural interaction not only will draw in closer foreign relations, but constitutes the best means to promote Taiwan identity in the international community," Huang commented.

As part of its efforts in this regard, MOFA named 2007 as "The Year for Taiwan-Japan Cultural and Tourism Exchange" during which a variety of art and cultural activities have been arranged throughout the whole year. One of the most prominent ones was the academic conference held in Taipei last month, featuring in-depth discussions among nearly three hundred scholars from both Taiwan and Japan on the historic links between these two countries.

"Due to similar cultural background, social system and geographical vicinity, there traditionally exists special relations, or affections, between the people of these two countries," Huang observed. In fact, Taiwan and Japan are each among the favorite foreign travel destinations of the other. Travelers between these two countries hit a record high of 2.5 million people last year--1.3 million travelers from here to Japan and 1.2 million from the northeastern neighbor country.

The number should keep growing in the following years given two breakthrough movements during this year. One is the accord signed by Taiwan and Japan in August for mutual recognition of the driver's license issued by each other's government. The other one is the memorandum reached in March by Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport and two Japanese airports in Kanazawa and Kyushu, respectively, to add new flight lines for each other. These two movements will definitely add to the booming traffic in the sky between the two countries.

1|2|3|Next Page>>