Chinese professionals will be allowed to work in Taiwanese-owned multinational corporations for up to three years as early as the end of this month, Minister Without Portfolio Schive Chi (薛琦) said.
Since 2003, foreign-invested multinational firms in Taiwan have been permitted to internally transfer employees from China to work in Taiwan for up to one year, but the rule did not apply to Taiwan-owned multinational corporations.
Facing complaints from the business community, officials have proposed lifting the ban on local enterprises and extending the duration to three years.
The proposal was approved at an inter-governmental meeting chaired by Schive on Thursday and was sent to Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) for approval.
According to the proposal drafted by the Ministry of the Interior, multinational firms, regardless of the nationality of their investors, may transfer management and other professionals from their Chinese subsidiaries to those in Taiwan if the candidate has been employed by the Chinese subsidiary for at least a year.
Multinational firms under the rules are defined as firms headquartered in Taiwan with subsidiaries in at least two countries, excluding Hong Kong, Macau or China. The eligible professionals will be granted work permits of up to three years duration, extendable by another three years each time they renew their permits, without an upper limit on the renewal time. Entry permits will also be granted to their spouses and underage children, the proposal said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) raised concern that the policy was a prelude to Taiwan opening even further to Chinese professionals.
He said that it was almost set in stone that the policy would also be applied to manufacturing industries in soon-to-be-created free-trade zones in Greater Kaohsiung, Taoyuan, Taipei and Greater Taichung, targeting Chinese investors and China-based Taiwanese investors.
Since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008, the annual number of work permits granted to Chinese professionals under the allowance has been about 180,000 on average, up from an annual average of between 40,000 and 50,000 in previous years, Hsu said.
Hsu said the policy would exacerbate wage stagnation and the ongoing exodus of Taiwanese talent and professionals, problems that the nation has been facing for a decade.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS