English services for foreign residents and visitors to Taiwan will raise the country’s global competitiveness and benefit local businesses, a Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) official said yesterday.
“The government has to serve not only its citizens but also foreign visitors and residents in Taiwan, as they are ‘customers,’” RDEC Deputy Minister Sung Yu-hsieh (宋餘俠) said at the award ceremony of the 2009 English Services Emblem Certification Ceremony and Exposition held to honor companies that provide good quality English services.
The certificate, conferred to businesses that provide excellent English service, is one of several government programs aimed at creating a friendly living environment for foreigners.
Of the 723 businesses registered for the program, 714 received certification after evaluation, including 46 businesses that received five-star certificates.
Businesses that passed the evaluation were given a trophy, a certificate and a sticker, based on the star ranking they received, that they can display at the entrance of their establishments to notify foreigners of their ability to provide services in English.
The companies will also be displayed on Google’s electronic maps service, allowing foreigners and the general public to easily search and locate establishments that provide good quality English service, Sung said.
“It is important for the government to put itself in the customer’s shoes and to create a friendly environment for them because Taiwan should open its arms to friends from all over the world in today’s trend of globalization,” he said.
Nicaraguan Ambassador William Tapia praised Taiwan’s efforts to create a friendly living environment for foreigners, saying that the promotion of English services can help reduce miscommunication between Taiwanese and foreigners.
He said he hoped Taiwan would continue its efforts, as “good English means good opportunities.”
This year, the program is targeting the retail, hospitality and services, tourism and recreation, medical services and transportation industries.
“The certification program has received much enthusiastic response from businesses since it was expanded to the private sector,” Sung said, adding that the government would enhance its guidance for improving English service and offer concrete assistance to boost the willingness of businesses to provide services inEnglish.
In last year’s International Living Environment Satisfaction Survey, which was conducted among foreigners in Taiwan, the overall satisfaction rate was 67.9 percent, an increase of 6.2 percent over the figure in 2007. The RDEC said this proved that its efforts were being noticed by foreigners in Taiwan.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400