Designated household registration offices may be authorized to accept passport applications in the second half of the year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Friday.
Lo Yu-chung (羅由中), director-general of MOFA’s consular affairs bureau, said the ministry had originally planned to allow Taiwanese citizens to apply for passports at selected household registration offices around the country by May 3.
However, the plan was delayed because of inadequate administrative procedures and coordination between various agencies, the lack of a legal basis as well as unprepared local governments, he said.
LIMITED RESOURCES
“Household registration offices face the problems of manpower, financial resources and legal authority if they want to handle passport applications,” Lo said.
At present, Taiwanese citizens can only apply for passports at MOFA offices in Taipei, Taichung, Hualien and Kaohsiung.
The ministry hopes that expanding the service to household registration offices will encourage more people to apply for passports in person, because it effectively protects personal privacy and information, the MOFA official said.
VISAS
Lo said Taiwan is now trying to convince the EU, US and Canada to give Taiwanese nationals visa-waiver treatment, and getting more people to handle the application process themselves could help Taiwan’s case.
Roughly 65 percent of all passport applicants in Taiwan have travel agencies take care of the process, while only 35 percent of applicants handle it on their own.
Lo said the ministry is currently gauging the interest of local household registration offices in adding the service.
The initial goal is to have four cities and counties join the program. Two have expressed a willingness to add the service, MOFA said, and the program could begin on a trial basis in the second half of the year.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS