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Taipei, May 12 (CNA) Representative offices of Macau and Hong Kong in Taiwan will be formally opened on Sunday and next Tuesday, respectively, to facilitate trade and culture exchanges.
The Macau Special Administrative Region and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region have been preparing for the opening of the offices since last December in light of more frequent exchanges with Taiwan, according to the Mainland Affairs Council.
“The establishment of the offices will bring closer partnership between the two regions and Taiwan,” said Tseng Mei-li, assistant director-general of Taiwan’s top mainland policy planner.
Tseng said the Macau Economic and Cultural Office will be headed by Nadia Leong, while John Leung will become director of the Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office.
Among the guests who will attend the opening ceremonies is Tam Chon Weng, chief of office of Macau’s Office of the Chief Executive, Leong said.
On the Hong Kong side, Leung said Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang will attend the opening ceremony.
Even though Hong Kong and Macau are located very close to Taiwan and for years people from these two places have visited Taiwan and done business here, no official offices existed because of previous tensions between Taipei and Beijing.
Improved relations between Taiwan and China in the past four years have made government-to-government contact between Taiwan and its neighbors Hong Kong and Macau possible.
Last July, Taiwan’s representative offices in the two China-controlled special administrative regions were renamed to reflect their status and functions in what the council called “a major milestone” of cross-strait relations.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong had been known as the Chung Hwa Travel Service since 1966 as a holdover from when the territory was still a British colony.
Meanwhile, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Macau was previously named as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Macau.
(By Lee Hsin-Yin |
