Guatemalan business defends ties with Taiwan (Roundup)

Jul 13, 2007, 22:43 GMT

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.