Citizens of China who are employed by international companies can in future be freely transferred to the companies' branches in Taiwan, following a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) policy change that was announced yesterday.
"To help make Taiwan the center of the greater-China market, the policy revision will be a significant step to facilitate those international companies' personnel transfers and training in Taiwan," said Jeff Yang (楊家駿), the director of the MAC's Department of Legal Affairs.
Under the new policy, the government will grant three-year working visas to international companies' Chinese employees and their families, which would make Taiwan's treatment of Chinese nationals in Taiwan no different from that of other foreign professionals.
The companies would also be entitled to apply for extending their Chinese employees' working visas every year, for an unlimited number of years.
International companies welcomed the news.
"We welcome the new policy. Hiring should not be limited by a person's nationality, especially as many Chinese nationals are believed to be good additions to our teams," said TSMC spokesman Tzeng Jih-hao (曾智皓).
Yang added that the new policy was also necessary because of Taiwan's entrance into the WTO last October.
The WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services states that the cross-border supply of services -- and also transactions involving the cross-border movement of capital and labor -- should be done without unnecessary restrictions.
Under the Statute Governing Relations between the People of Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (
International companies, how-ever, have had difficulties transferring Chinese employees to Taiwan under the regulation, which is widely considered to be an obstruction to Taiwan's further development.
Following Taiwan and China's entrance into the WTO last October, the MAC started revising its policies and regulations related to cross-strait trade exchanges.
The relaxed restrictions include the shortening of the the time needed to process applications by Chinese economic and trade professionals for visas -- from two months to five to ten days -- and extending high-tech professionals' maximum staying period from three years to six years.
The MAC also started issuing six-year multiple entry-and-exit visas to Chinese professionals who want to work in Taiwan.
Yang said that the MAC is proposing new and comprehensive measures to regulate the current cross-strait trade, and would submit these to the Executive Yuan soon.
The new measures would regulate economic exchanges among all kinds of industries more clearly, Yang said.
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