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The United States supported Taiwan's entry into the WTO in January 2002, offering Taiwan a powerful new forum to engage the international community multilaterally. In recent years trade between the US and Taiwan has grown at a rapid pace. In 2005, total bilateral trade reached nearly US$60 billion. The US is Taiwan's number three trading partner and Taiwan is the United States'number eight trading partner. But these figures don't tell the whole story. Exports to the United States accounted for 15 percent of Taiwan's total exports, but US firms accounted for a substantially higher portion of orders placed with Taiwan companies. US firms placed orders worth US$68.9 billion in 2005, accounting for 27 percent of total orders received by Taiwan firms. HP, a US firm, is one of Taiwan’s biggest customers in the world.
Our bilateral investment relationship also continues to flourish. Through 2004, US investment in Taiwan totaled US$12.1 billion. Corning's massive glass substrate plants in Tainan and Taichung are among the largest foreign investments on the island. Both Motorola and Microsoft have built important research facilities here. Most recently, Dupont joined them with its new Semiconductor Materials Technical Center, which opened in Hsinchu just last month.
Of course, the ties between our two peoples are solid as well. Over 70,000 US citizens live in Taiwan. The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) issued nearly 20,000 visas in 2005, including more than 15,000 student visas. While the number of Taiwanese students attending schools in the UK and Australia has declined in recent years, the number attending schools in the US continues to grow. |
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