People have continued to migrate to northern Taiwan from the south in large numbers in the past six years, raising concerns over imbalanced population migration and regional development, according to the latest migration statistics released by the Ministry of the Interior.
More than 160,000 people migrated to northern Taiwan from abroad or other parts of the country between January 2008 and December last year, while central, southern and eastern Taiwan all experienced net population outflows, the statistics showed.
During the six-year period, New Taipei City (新北市), Taoyuan County, Greater Taichung, Kinmen County and Hsinchu County saw the biggest population inflows, while Changhua County and Pingtung County, both heavily reliant on agriculture, had the biggest population outflows.
The ministry said Kinmen County’s six-year population growth of 36,974 could be a result of its social welfare program and the impact of the “small three links” policy with China.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家淇) said measures would be taken to improve infrastructure and social welfare, and help young people stay in less-developed areas, while urban planning would have to be reviewed in densely populated cities to satisfy the public’s needs.
Last year, 8,077 people moved to Taoyuan County, which had the biggest population inflow in the nation, followed by 7,351 in Greater Taichung and 6,828 in Kinmen County. Changhua suffered the biggest outflow, with 6,148 people migrating out of the county, the ministry’s statistics showed.
Taiwan had a net migration inflow of about 14,000 people last year, which represented 25.1 percent of the total population increase, the ministry said.
Another recent phenomenon is that the nation’s gender ratio (males per 100 females) dipped below 100 for the first time to 99.99, according to the ministry’s statistics released early last month. This means that the female population in Taiwan surpassed the male population for the first time in the past century.
The ministry said it expected the ratio to consistently decrease in the future, but added that the gender ratio in most advanced democracies is below 100.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
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
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS