Taiwan shows interest in investing in Orissa

Encouraged by progress in its business ventures in other Indian states, Taiwan today showed keen interest in exploring investment potentials in Orissa, mainly in textiles, food processing and IT sectors.

"While assessing investment prospects in Orissa, we are more interested in setting up food processing, textiles, IT manufacturing and computer units," visiting Taiwanese Ambassador Wenchyi Ong told reporters here.

Scheduled to meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik tomorrow, he said "it is going to be a win-win situation for both. Business and commercial ventures by Taiwan, if materialised, will generate enormous job opportunities for local people in Orissa."

Describing his tour as the first official visit to Orissa, Ong said combined investment by Taiwanese in five states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi stood at a modest level of one billion dollars.

The results, however, had been encouraging as the ventures made by Taiwan had generated a lot of jobs, he said adding "in Tamil Nadu alone, where we have invested about 387 million dollars, over 20,000 jobs were created."

The Taiwan Ambassador said his country would also explore the prospects of importing sea fish from Orissa to meet its domestic demand and a meeting with Orissa Sea Food Exporters Association was also in the agenda.

Taiwan imported fish worth 300 to 400 million dollars last year, he said.

Happy with India-Taiwan bilateral trade, Ong said it had grown about 40% to touch around 6.4 billion dollars last year.

If talks with the chief minister and senior officials yield positive results, a business delegation from Taiwan would soon visit Orissa with concrete investment proposals, he said. There was a lot of scope for cooperation in tourism sector.

Referring to the Buddhist circuit in Orissa, Ong said religious tourism could be tapped in a big way to increase the flow of Taiwanese tourists to the state.

Similarly, collaborations and ties in education, mainly vocational education, would also be explored, he said adding his country had already proposed scholarships for brilliant Orissa students.