Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Chiou Jong-nan (邱榮男) will be Taiwan's new representative to France, Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) said yesterday in announcing a series of personnel changes in the foreign ministry.
"This is the first batch of reshuffling of Taiwan's diplomats," Chien told reporters during a luncheon with the media.
The current representative to France, Hsieh Hsin-ping (
Chiou served as Taiwan's representative in France from 1991 to 1996 and Taiwan's ambassador to Haiti from 1997 to 2000.
"With his strong ability in the French language and close relations with France, we hope to strengthen our relations with Paris," Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Katharine Chang (
In other moves, Wu Wen-ya (
Chien said that other personnel transfers are being considered.
"Job rotation is a normal part of the diplomatic service," Chien said. "The planned adjustments have been prudently evaluated. Both Chiou and Wu are suitable for their new posts."
Chien said that the government rotates diplomats to help them develop their abilities and talents in the most suitable places.
Chien gave the example of Wu's assignment to Malaysia, where, the foreign minister said, Wu's experience of serving in trade and economic affairs and of overseas work would be of great use in his new job.
"I'm convinced that once he assumes his new post, he will contribute much to the development of substantive relations between Taiwan and Malaysia," Chien said.
Meanwhile, the ministry said it was considering signing accords with developed countries on the issuance of "working holidaymaker visas."
"Japan has signed memorandums of understanding with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France and South Korea on the exchange of `working holidaymaker visas' to encourage exchanges of their youth," a ministry official said.
Under these bilateral accords, Japan allows young people from the five countries to enter its territory for sightseeing and to take up part-time or short-term work.
South Korea has signed similar agreements with Australia, New Zealand and Canada to promote bilateral youth exchanges.
The official said that the "working holidaymaker visas" program has achieved satisfactory results in both Japan and South Korea and has become a welcome forum for international youth exchanges.
"Therefore Taiwan should learn from the Japanese and South Korean experiences in this regard," the official said.
"Allowing a large number of youths from advanced countries [to come to Taiwan] for vacation and short-term work would enable them to have first-hand information about Taiwan's culture and its liberal and democratic lifestyle," he said, adding that those youths could become "friends of Taiwan" in the long run.
Moreover, the official said the program could also be conducive to the government's drive to upgrade local people's English proficiency as visiting foreign youths could serve as English teachers during their vacation in Taiwan.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS