Taiwan has again been voted as the best place for expatriates to live, after claiming the top spot three years ago, thanks to its good healthcare, quality of life and job environment, a survey by the expatriate networking Web site InterNations found.
Respondents to the Expat Insider survey by Munich, Germany-based InterNations this year selected Taiwan as the top destination for expatriates, with an overall satisfaction rate of 86 percent from those living in the nation, compared with an average of 75 percent from expatriates living in the other nations surveyed.
Taiwan last year ranked second and fourth in 2017, after topping the survey in 2016.
Photo courtesy of Chen Chi-yuan
The survey asked more than 20,000 expatriates how satisfied they were with their quality of life, ease of settling in, working life, personal finances, cost of living and family life in 64 destinations worldwide.
“Taiwan offers great variety for such a small island. Nature, the culture and the people are very friendly,” said a video on the InterNations Web site introducing the survey.
Taiwan ranked third in quality of life — with 96 percent of respondents in the nation satisfied with the level of personal safety — sixth in personal finances, eighth in working life, 11th in cost of living and 14th in ease of settling in.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
As only 9 percent of respondents were raising children, there were not enough expatriate parents to rank Taiwan in the family life index, InterNations said.
Nearly 92 percent of respondents living in Taiwan agreed that the nation has a high level of medical care, while 89 percent were satisfied with its affordability, the survey showed.
“No other destination has performed better on quality or affordability since Taiwan entered the survey,” InterNations said.
Taiwan ranked second on career prospects for expatriates, with 65 percent of respondents saying that they were satisfied.
The expatriates’ high satisfaction in many areas was somewhat offset by their dissatisfaction with pollution in Taiwan — the nation ranked 35th on quality of the environment — and difficulty learning the local language — 52 percent of respondents said that they were struggling with learning Chinese.
This year’s No. 2 destination for expatriates was Vietnam, followed by Portugal, Mexico, Spain, Singapore, Bahrain, Ecuador, Malaysia and the Czech Republic.
The least favorable destinations were Kuwait, Italy, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, India, the UK, Greece, Russia and South Korea.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS