Taiwan has asked the Indonesian government for a grace period before Jakarta raises its landing visa fee, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
Jakarta announced on Wednesday it would introduce a new single 30-day Visa on Arrival (VOA) that costs US$25, scrapping its old seven-day US$10 landing visa.
MOFA said the new system was applicable to the 50 plus countries eligible for Indonesia’s VOA.
The news, however, caught the ministry by surprise.
Ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said Department of Asian and Pacific Affairs Director-General Matthew Lee (李世明) had called in Indonesian Representative Suhartono to ask for an explanation.
Chen said Suhartono told Lee he had no prior knowledge of the price change, but promised to relay to his government Taiwan’s request for a grace period.
Taiwan has visa-waiver privileges with its allies as well as with the UK, New Zealand, Ireland, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.
In other travel-related news, the ministry said seven Taiwanese are still stranded at the World Heritage site of Machu Picchu, Peru, after rains and mudslides knocked out several sections of train track, trapping about 2,000 visitors.
About 600 tourists have been evacuated by helicopter, foreign news agencies reported, and a ministry official said 15 members of a 21-person Taiwanese group were among those rescued.
“The trapped Taiwanese people are now at a hotel,” said Joanne Ou (歐江安), a ministry section chief.
“Peru’s military has taken over the rescue operation and is airlifting old or weak people first,” she said.
The Taiwanese still trapped in the Inca citadel were wait-listed because they are younger, she said.
The ministry was in close contact with Taiwan’s representative office in Peru, she said.
Gycs Gordon, director of the Commercial Office of Peru in Taipei, told the Central News Agency that the rain was “some of the worst in decades” and that the railway to the site has been cut off for three days but was expected to reopen today.
More than 2,000 people from Taiwan visited Peru last year, most of who traveled around the Lunar New Year holiday, Gordon said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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