The government is seeking to increase opportunities for young people to work legally while traveling in Germany next year amid greater-than-expected demand for the working holiday program launched on Oct. 11, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
“Thousands of Taiwanese youth have been calling the German Institute Taipei to inquire about the working holiday program, while the number of applicants who have registered for an interview has exceeded 300,” James Lee (李光章), the director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs, told a press conference.
Taiwanese and German representatives signed a joint statement on Oct. 10 last year, with each side offering 200 multiple-entry visas for a working holiday program under which people aged 18 to 30 can work in the other country for up to one year.
Taiwan’s plan to increase the quota next year was well received, with the German Institute Taipei saying it would ask the German government to give the request first priority, Lee said.
Germany was the first European country and fifth in the world to sign a working holiday program with Taiwan, after Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada.
Lee said data on the number of German youth who had applied for the program was not yet available.
Meanwhile, Lee said last year saw a significant increase in the number of Taiwanese traveling to the UK since the inclusion of Taiwan in the British visa-waiver program in March last year.
UK Border Agency statistics showed that the number of Taiwanese visitors for short-term recreational and business purposes last year rose 107 percent to 54,170 from 26,095 in 2008.
Excluding business travelers, the number of Taiwanese visitors to the UK surged 150 percent last year, while the number of Taiwanese students in the UK rose 70 percent last year, he said.
Last year also saw a surge in visits by UK passport holders to Taiwan to 80,935, from 51,980 in 2008, Lee said.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
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EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
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