Tainan, Taiwan - The Taiwan-based World Vegetable Centre plans to open a regional centre in Central America to expand research and development projects to Latin America, its director Dyno Keatinge said Wednesday.

"Next week I will travel to Central America to decide where our future office will be. It will be out of the choice of either Nicaragua or Honduras," he said.

The centre was founded in 1971 in Shanhua, southern Taiwan, by the Asian Development Bank, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

Originally called the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre, the institute's aim is to reduce malnutrition and alleviate poverty in developing nations through improving production and consumption of vegetables. (dpa)