As for Taiwanese students in Malaysian universities, there are a few Taiwanese students studying in Malaysian institutions of higher learning based on the record of the Centre's Visa Division in Taipei. These private colleges cater for degree courses in collaboration with foreign universities through various twinning programs.
Abdul Rahim Bakri said, "I wish to take this opportunity to highlight the Malaysian government's policy of promoting Malaysia as a center for educational excellence. We have now many foreign students including those from our neighboring Southeast Asian countries and also China, who are studying English on a short-term basis or enrolled in the various twinning programs as a result of our policy. As of last year, the foreign student population comprised 22 percent of the total student population of 210,000. We hope to achieve 25 percent for the foreign student component by 2005."
To further promote the policy, Malaysia have also relaxed visa requirements for foreign students in the private colleges especially those which have short term English courses and twinning programs with foreign universities such as those in the US and Australia.
In addition, parents of the foreign students area also welcomed and they too automatically can be issued with multiple-entry visas with six months' validity and can be renewed if the student has yet to complete the course.
"I wish to invite students from Taiwan to consider Malaysia as a possible destination for learning English and foreign degree courses. English is widely spoken in Malaysia and the cost of living is much lower besides providing a good quality of life," remarked Abdul Rahim Bakri.
Twinning programs also allow students to get internationally recognized degrees from foreign universities including established ones like Monash University at a much lower cost since students may only need to go overseas only in the final year. Some degree twining programs allow students to do the whole course completely in Malaysia without the need to go abroad.
In tourism, more than 250,000 Taiwanese traveled to Malaysia last year. Malaysia's tourism theme is "Malaysia Truly Asia" as it reflects appropriately the various aspects of the major cultures of Asia -- Malay, Chinese, and Indian and all found in one country. So to experience Asia, you don't have to travel over the whole continent, but just come to one single destination which is enchanting Malaysia.
Malaysia is indeed working very hard to attract more and more tourists from all over the world including Taiwan as this sector is a major foreign exchange earner for the Malaysian economy. Among the steps taken by Tourism Malaysia to promote Malaysia and attract tourists from all over the world are -- inviting production crew to use Malaysia as the backdrop of their movies; (examples of the movie include "The King and I" starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yuen Fat; and the current movie "The Touch" starring Michelle Yeoh who is also the producer), large scale familiarization tours for people in the travel and media industry; aggressive media campaigns; hosting of international events and conferences in Malaysia such as Formula One Races, etc..
Malaysia offers a potpourri of multi-cultural experiences, tropical rainforests, natural scenic beauty, affordable accommoda-tion, great shopping and a wide variety of delicious food. It is a great place to unwind and to soak in the many wonders that make Malaysia a microcosm of Asia, and all being offered at very competitive prices.
RSS