"We're happy over the feedback from local companies. Businessmen from various parts of the Kingdom attended the show. Their enthusiasm was heartwarming indeed," W.K. Lai, Taiwan's economic counselor, said. Lai said that the main objective of the show is to promote globally competitive Taiwanese products in the Kingdom.
"There's great potential for our products in the Kingdom. In addition, this show saves Saudi buyers' valuable time and cost in locating and visiting Taiwanese suppliers. For buyers who are not able to come to visit suppliers in Taiwan, this show plays an ideal platform for them to find suitable suppliers of targeted products in an efficient way," Lai told Arab News.
He said Taiwan's modularization and mass production capabilities as well as many key technologies make it an important supporting force for East Asia to become the largest production base in the world.
He said he was hoping the same enthusiasm would be shown when a 28-member delegation from the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) would also visit Riyadh on Oct. 19 and Jeddah on Oct. 22.
Riyadh-based representatives Yasin Chen of Micro-Star Int'l Co. Ltd. and Muaiyed Kuo of SP Silicon Power also expressed happiness over the attendance by representatives of local firms.
Micro-Star manufactures personal computers while SP Silicon deals in flash drive, hard disks and memory cards.
Mugbil M. Al-Dossary, owner of Carpentry World Trading Est. said that he was happy over the occasion because he had the opportunity to know new products from Taiwan "whose businessmen I've been doing business with for the last 25 years."
He added that his company, which deals in construction products such as door knobs, screws, among others, has found that Taiwanese products are of superior quality and the prices are reasonable.
Saudi Arabia is one of the major economic partners of Taiwan and ranks in the list of trading partners in the region. During the January-June 2011 period, the bilateral trade between the two countries increased to $7.8 billion, with Taiwan's exports to Saudi Arabia amounting to $859 million and its imports touching about $6.94 billion.
