There will soon be a Wyoming Pacific Asia office based in Taiwan. The Wyoming Business Council (WBC) has entered into a 22-month contract with a Taiwanese representative to help create business relationships between the state and country.
Ron Gullberg, the WBC communications director, said, since Wyoming already had diplomatic relationships with Taiwan, it made sense to create an international trading market with the Asian country. He said Wyoming exported $466 million dollars’ worth of goods to Asia in 2016.
“There’s a growing market there for some things that Wyoming has and we want to do the research to find out how we can expand those opportunities and grow Wyoming’s export status,” he said.
The partnership is also an effort increase Wyoming’s ranking of 49th in the nation for international exports. Gullberg said U.S. beef is about 75 percent of the chilled beef market in Taiwan.
“The market is increasing Its protein intake. And Wyoming has a lot of cattle and this is an opportunity to enter that market,” he said.
Gullberg said the partnership will expand to other industries like outdoor recreation and a variety of agricultural products. Plus, he said there is possible opportunity for investment in Wyoming from Taiwan. The hope is to eventually expand trading throughout Asia.