A commercial featuring Taiwan’s beauty began showing in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday and will run for one month as part of efforts to promote tourism, officials posted in the US said.
The campaign, which will run between Christmas and New Year, marks the first time a Taiwanese commercial has been shown in the square.
From 6am until 2am every day, the two-and-a-half minute ad will be shown every hour on two wall screens on either side of the Times Square Ball — the focus of the New Year countdown that attracts more than 1.6 million revelers every year.
Kao Jen-chuan (高振群), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, said the commercial provides a rare opportunity for Taiwan’s beautiful scenery to be brought to the world stage.
Chang Cheng-yuan (張政源), director of the Tourism Bureau’s New York office, said the ad was expected to greatly increase the nation’s media exposure and help attract more visitors.
Visitor arrivals from the US dropped by 5 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of this year, officials said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European