Paris, France, March 30 (CNA)

Two vehicle development organizations from Taiwan and France signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Friday on future cooperation in developing production standards and testing technology for electric vehicles.

The partnership is aimed at eventually pushing for mutual certification of electric vehicles from the two countries.

Joe Huang, the president of Taiwan's Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC), signed the cooperation agreement with Laurent Benoit, head of the Union Technique de l'Automobile du Motocycle et du Cycle (UTAC).

The ARTC, founded by various Taiwan government agencies and private enterprises, serves as one of the major developers of a wide range of services for the local vehicle industry, such as research and development, testing and certification.

The UTAC is a private French company that has an official mandate for vehicle approval, safety testing, and vehicle inspection.

Huang said the MOU will pave the way for future cooperation between Taiwan and France, with the industrial sectors of both countries embracing high hopes of establishing a mutual certification system for electric vehicle production in the future.

Duh Tyzz-jiun, the director general of Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau, led Taiwan's delegation to a bilateral industrial cooperation conference held in Paris on March 28 and witnessed Friday's signing ceremony.

Taiwan and France have listed the development of electric vehicles as one of the priorities of their future industrial cooperation, Duh said, and he described the MOU as the reward reaped from two years of close bilateral industrial exchanges.

Duh said Taiwan has laid a good foundation in electric vehicle production, in particular in the development of components such as batteries and power control systems, and he believed there was room for the local electric vehicle sector to grow.

Meanwhile, Venturi of France signed a letter of intent to purchase electric buses from Taiwan-based Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry Co. The purchase is expected to total about NT$11.8 billion over five years.

In addition, Venturi is in talks with Taiwan's EVT Technology to import key electric vehicle components to France.

(By Luo Yuan-shao and Frances Huang)

 News from  Focus Taiwan