Guatemala City - Guatemala's business association on Friday
said it supported the country's ties with Taiwan and hoped the plans
of a Taiwanese company to help build an oil refinery in the country
would become a reality.
Carlos Zuniga, president of the Guatemalan business association,
said he believed relations with Taiwan would not stop Guatemala from
making some inroads into the Chinese market, which he acknowledged
was 'much larger in terms of population.'
Zuniga said he believed Costa Rica's decision last month to break
its more than 60-year relations with Taiwan in favour of China was a
'mistake,' adding that Taiwan had remained a 'friend' of Guatemala's
through even the most difficult times.
Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu, who is visiting Guatemala
this week, said on Thursday that petrochemical conglomerate Formosa
Plastics Group (FPG) had expressed interest in helping build an oil
refinery in the country.
She added that FPG would soon be sending its own delegation to
Guatemala to evaluate the possibility.
Zuniga said he hoped FPG would follow through, though FPG has not
confirmed any investment plans in Guatemala.
'I don't know anything about it, so I cannot make any comment,' an
FPG spokesman said Friday.
Lu is on a 12-day visit to the Dominican Republic, Paraguay,
Panama and Guatemala, leading a 63-member delegation.
The official purpose of her trip is to attend celebrations marking
five decades of Taiwanese-Paraguayan friendship, but Taiwan media
have speculated that it is a damage-control trip to prevent Taiwan's
few remaining Latin American allies from dumping Taiwan after Costa
Rica decided to recognize China on June 1.
Taiwan, seat of the exiled Republic of China since the end of the
Chinese Civil War in 1949, is now recognized by only 24 mostly small
nations, half of them in Latin America and the Caribbean.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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