The nation needs to further ease its immigration regulations, starting with citizenship and permanent residence rules, in order to attract more white-collar foreign workers, Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) said yesterday.
Taiwan is vying for foreign talent, but “currently, many of our rules are still not very friendly,” Lee said in Taipei at the opening of an international forum on immigration policy.
Foreign businesses have difficulty with the nation’s accounting system and its rendering process, Lee said.
The government should try to find ways to cut red tape for such businesses, he said.
“There are many things that local people may be used to and may find normal, but that white-collar foreign nationals from developed countries might not,” Lee said.
The government will “examine each and every rule to provide a friendlier environment” for foreign nationals, starting with applications for citizenship and permanent residence in the country, he said.
Human resources experts from countries including the US, Taiwan, Canada, China, South Korea and Singapore, along with local government officials, were attending the International Conference on Immigration Policy.
The topics discussed at the one-day event included immigration policy, human capital and how to attract talent.
Dovelyn Rannveig Agunias, a policy analyst for the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, said that any country aiming to recruit foreign talent should create institutions and programs for emigrants and their descendants who maintain material ties to their countries of origin.
“They identify with their country of origin or ancestry and are willing to maintain ties to it,” she said.
Creating a conducive legislative and regulatory framework is critical to persuading such people to stay in Taiwan, Agunias said.
In addition to incentives, regulations and legislation sometimes play a more important role, such as political rights, property rights and tax deductions, she said.
Charles MacAdam Beach, a professor emeritus at Canada’s Queen’s University, offered his opinions on Canada’s program for soliciting skilled workers during a speech he made at the conference.
Applicants have to pass a point system screening in which points are based on the skills and adaptability of workers, and the needs of the economy and the work force, Beach said.
Implemented in 1967, the system is intended to provide a more transparent, fair and objective approach that reflects reduced discrimination, he said.
However, he acknowledged that the system might be slow to keep up with the changing needs of the economy and the labor market.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,