"Too soon" to talk about Pacific project costs: MOFA

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on September 6, 2006. It reports that according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the eight priority cooperation projects signed between Taiwan and its six Pacific allies have set only a direction. It is too early to discuss the exact amounts of money involved to implement these projects.

In the recent Palau Declaration signed by Taiwan and its six Pacific allies, Taiwan has pledged to promote eight priority cooperation projects in the fields of law enforcement training, digitized government, medical and public health, agriculture and fishery cooperation, economic partnership, alternative energy and environmental protection, tourism and Austronesian culture.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the details of these eight projects will be worked out in exchanges between Taiwan's embassies and its allies. This will take into consideration the needs of the allies, as well as Taiwan's capabilities.

According to the ministry, Taiwan's total foreign affairs budget is about NT$28 billion (US$853.65 million) a year. This is less than half of that is used for international cooperation projects. Because of this, the government can only provide limited resources for cooperation projects with its 23 allies, not counting the Vatican.

"Taiwan excels in providing expert assistance in diplomatic cooperation projects, but it is incapable of engaging in dollar diplomacy competition with China and will never do so," officials at the ministry said.