Madam Speaker, I will first congratulate the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his elevation to the front bench. It is wonderful to see him there. That position, however, may more appropriately belong to the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, who, as acknowledged, was successful.
I will begin by emphasizing that there is no reluctance on the government's part whatsoever to recognize Taiwan as an important friend and partner with whom we share extensive and highly complementary interests in areas ranging from science and technology to youth exchanges and public health. In accordance with Canada's one China policy, we maintain unofficial but valuable economic, cultural and people-to-people ties with Taiwan. Our extensive ties with Taiwan have continued to flourish in recent years based on a shared commitment to the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
As Canada's 13th largest merchandise trading partner and our fifth largest trading partner in Asia, Taiwan plays a critical role in ICT supply chains and the global economy more broadly. Taiwan's expertise in the manufacturing of key technologies such as semiconductors, for instance, serves as a direct complement to Canadian strengths in technological research and development.
In 2018 alone, merchandise trade between Canada and Taiwan increased 10.2% and reached $7.9 billion. Both governments have implemented policies to diversify trade and investment to include new partners. We have real opportunities to deepen our commercial relationship. With changes to global supply chains in Asia and North America, there are plenty of opportunities to collaborate on new technologies and trends in the growing digital economy. Both opportunities and potential challenges can provide greater openings for Canada and Taiwan to work together.
In 2019, we sought to further deepen our trade and investment co-operation with Taiwan by hosting the annual Canada-Taiwan economic consultations here in Ottawa. All of these efforts leverage our ongoing initiatives, such as the Canadian technology accelerator program in Taipei, to help Canadian companies deepen their access to Taiwan's market and secure more partnership opportunities.
On the multilateral front, Canada continues to engage Taiwan in international organizations where Taiwan is a full participant, such as APEC and the WTO. In addition to these forums, Canada has consistently supported Taiwan's meaningful and important participation in international organizations where there is a practical imperative and where Taiwan's absence would be detrimental to global interests and Canada's interests. We have identified the World Health Assembly, which governs the WHO, as one area where global interests would be served by Taiwan's meaningful participation as a non-state observer.
I want to reassure the member that there is no reluctance whatsoever to help engage with Taiwan at important multilateral opportunities.