Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday announced that it plans to establish a representative office in Montreal, Canada, to promote closer bilateral exchanges.
MOFA, however, did not divulge when the office is expected to become operational, saying only that related preparations are still ongoing.
Once it opens, the office will become Taiwan’s fourth representative office in Canada, following its main office in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, and branch offices in Toronto and Vancouver.
In a press release, MOFA said the new office will be named the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), Montréal.
The decision to open the new office was made in recognition of Canada being a bilingual country in which English and French are official languages, and of Montreal being the biggest city in the province of Quebec, where most of Canada’s French speaking population lives.
Widely known as a Canadian hub for technology clusters, Montreal is also home to the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization, and it hosts missions from several countries, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France, MOFA said.
“Taiwan’s establishment of a new office in Montreal will lend impetus to further cooperation and exchanges between the two countries,” in particular after Canada recently announced its own Indo-Pacific Strategy, MOFA said.
As part of that strategy, Canada wants to deepen relationships with partners in the Indo-Pacific region, including enhancing economic and people-to-people ties with Taiwan and further developing partnerships focused on science, technology, and innovation, according to MOFA.
After its opening, TECO Montreal will also work with Taiwan’s other offices in Canada to provide better services to overseas Taiwanese in the North American country, it said.
Taiwan currently has 111 overseas representative offices, including embassies and consulates in the 14 countries with which it has formal diplomatic relations.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel