Paraguayan president-elect arrives in Taiwan, pledges to boost ties
ROC Central News Agency
07/11/2023 06:18 PM
Taipei, July 11 (CNA) Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon with a group of incoming government officials for a 5-day visit that he said would aim to "reinforce the friendship" between Asunción and Taipei.
"I'm joined by my wife, my daughter, and my economic team that will work with me in the next couple of years to bring our relations to a place that we can only dream at this moment," Peña told reporters shortly after touching down at Taoyuan International Airport, without elaborating.
Also in the Peña's delegation are Foreign Minister-designate Rubén Ramírez Lezcano, incoming Presidential Chief Secretary Lea Giménez Duarte, Finance Minister-designate Carlos Fernández Valdovinos, and incoming Industry Minister Francisco Javier Giménez García de Zúñiga.
Peña said he was looking forward to meeting with government officials and private sector representatives in Taiwan during his July 11-15 visit to explore ways to "reinforce the friendship" that was built on 66 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
"I want to spend the next five years bringing us together," said the 44-year-old president-elect, who is scheduled to be sworn in next month, "We are close, but I think that in these moments, we need to be closer."
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Presidential Office issued a press release to welcome the Paraguayan president-elect and his delegation.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), who is also the Democratic Progressive Party's presidential nominee, will meet with the Paraguayan delegation separately and discuss issues of interest to both countries, the release said, without revealing the meeting dates.
Peña, a former economist who served as Paraguay's finance minister from 2015 to 2017, is from the Colorado Party, which has been in power since 2013.
Peña received nearly 44 percent of the vote in April's presidential election, defeating his main rival Efrain Alegre, who had pledged to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing during his election campaign, by a double-digit margin.
The victory for Peña, who favors maintaining Paraguay's diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name), dispelled some concerns that Taiwan would lose another diplomatic ally.
Currently, Paraguay is one of the 13 independent states that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and the only one in South America.
(By Teng Pei-ju)
Enditem/ASG
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