Taiwan and European Union (EU) from both sides conducted comprehensive policy discussions on major issues of digital economy development. The collaboration further enhanced the partnership on promoting the global digital economy between the two parties.
The EU praised the long-standing cooperation with Taiwan to which the EU attaches high importance. The COVID-19 pandemic has promoted unprecedented progress in the digital economy and data economy, and also highlighted the importance of establishing public-private partnerships and strengthening international cooperation and connections for economic development and growth.
With the deployment of prevention measures in advance, Taiwan is doing relatively well in pandemic containment and thus is dealing with a smaller economic impact, and Taiwan is willing to share our successful experience with the world. Global economic and trade activities this year have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the same time, driven by the application of digital technology, the transformation of consumers and service providers moving from offline to online has also been accelerated, profoundly changing the pattern of global economic development and people’s work and lifestyle. However, the pandemic is still one of the biggest global economic risks, and governments around the world need to continue their endeavours for strong policy actions and cross-border cooperation to fight against the uncertainties.
In echoing the EU priority given to digital and green transformation, and that the EU would expand cross-border cooperation with a partnership between the public and private sectors, these have come in line with the priority of Taiwan’s future national development.
While the world economy is gradually recovering from the pandemic impact, governments all over the world need to assist enterprises to resume their activities in production and investment as soon as possible. The public sector must also seize the opportunity to accelerate economic restructuring and digital transformation, with the aim of forging a more resilient and inclusive digital nation.”
– Dr Ming-Hsin Kung, Minister of the National Development Council
Taiwan is actively planning the next phase of development strategies of the “Digital Nation and Innovative Economic Development Program (DIGI+)”, promoting six core strategic industries including information and digital industries, outstanding cybersecurity industries, precision health industries; together with people-centred digital government services. The government is striving to build Taiwan into an innovative, inclusive, and sustainable smart nation.
Taiwan and EU exchanged views on overall digital policies to promote digital economy on major topics such as research and technology cooperation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity certification, data economy, and digital connectivity, as follows:
- Research & Technology Cooperation: Taiwan and the EU have a solid foundation for long-term cooperation in the field of scientific research, and each has its own fields of expertise. The two parties exchanged their current status of technology and industrial applications in AI, 5G/beyond 5G, microelectronics and smart systems, and expressed high interests in further joint cooperation on advance research in the aforementioned fields (including AI chip design and AI architecture, Open RAN), industrial integration applications (such as smart manufacturing), and the cultivation and exchange of talents.
- AI: Taiwan and the EU agreed that expanding international cooperation in the field of AI is critical to accelerating the development of AI, and will jointly promote the establishment of global technical standards for interoperable and trustworthy AI.
- Data Economy: In the digital age, data is considered a strategic asset. Taiwan has considerable practical experience in big data applications, such as e-maps for face masks and online databases of actual prices of real estate transactions.
The NDC stated that Taiwan and the EU have respective advantages in promoting the digital economy and the differences also bring plenty of cooperative opportunities for both sides. Taiwan and the EU continued to expand policy exchange on digital economy development through dialogue, for better understanding the latest digital economy policy and development progress of both sides.
