Introduction

The International Trade Institute (ITI) was established to train trade specialists who are well versed in foreign languages and the practices of international trade.

 

ITI offers a range of international business programs that vary in length from six months to one year. ITI also conducts on-the-job training seminars and workshops to help participants increase their knowledge and understanding of international trade, business language, and management principles.

 

Due to the rapid growth of imports and exports in the'70s and'80s, Taiwan's economy was enjoying an upswing. Constrained by the prevailing regulated educational system, business courses and foreign languages had long been treated as separated disciplines in this country's tertiary education. As a result, the supply of young professionals trained with the two-pronged approach fell far short of the demand of the local business community. Therefore the Executive Yuan approved the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ (MOEA) petition to set up the International Trade Institute (ITI) under TAITRA’s jurisdiction.

 

With the support of Mr. Wang Chien-shien, then Vice-Minister of MOEA, TAITRA invited representatives from the government sector, private sector as well as academic circles for their consulting and came up with the framework of the International Business Administration Program (IBAP), in which university or college graduates looking for a career in international trade are recruited for two-year intensive training.

 

The leap from the already established “On-the-Job Training Courses” (scheduled at irregular intervals) to a full-time ”Pre-career Training Program” was a great one. However, it was soon discovered that the two programs complemented each other---each program catering for the needs of a different kind of person---and over a short period of time, TAITRA metamorphosed into a full-fledged training organization.

 

In the meantime, it has been expanded from the Taipei World Trade Center in Taipei to the campus in Hsinchu at the Professional Training Center, MOEA,  one in Taichung on NCHU Campus and one in Kaohsiung on NSYSU Campus.

 

Since TAITRA's inception in 1970, it has been mandated to help cultivate the export markets for the business community. Over the past decades, it has developed a well-coordinated trade promotion and information network composed of a staff of over 1,300 trained specialists stationed in its headquarters in Taipei, five local branch offices in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung as well as over 60 overseas branch offices world-wide.