President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday met with Central American Integration System (SICA) secretary-general Vinicio Cerezo to discuss Taiwan’s professional workforce.
Using the analogy of a tailor who measures their customer to make a well-fitting suit, Tsai said that the nation’s skilled workers are well-equipped to meet the individual needs of international trading partners.
During the meeting at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, Tsai talked about the nation’s long-term working relationship with SICA countries, which include 120 joint projects completed over the past 26 years.
Photo: CNA
Five of the nation’s 18 remaining diplomatic allies are in Central America: Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The only SICA member that has no diplomatic relationship with the nation is the Dominican Republic, which on April 30 ended its 77-year relationship with Taiwan and established ties with China.
Tsai, who sent a recorded message to the organization on its anniversary in December last year, said that the Taiwan-SICA relationship is very important to the nation and thanked Cerezo for sending his condolences after an earthquake in Hualien County on Feb. 6.
Tsai also praised Cerezo’s efforts when he was president of Guatemala, which she said contributed greatly to peace and stability in Central America.
Cerezo was responsible for the improvement of basic infrastructure in the region and has brought more young people onboard at the organization, she added.
Taiwan’s advantage is in the talent and professionalism of its workforce, Tsai said.
“We are not like a factory that can mass-produce clothes of predetermined measurements, but rather, we are like a highly skilled tailor who can discuss requirements with our client at every step of the way, perfectly tailoring clothes to meet their needs,” she said.
Citing work with Central American farmers and doctors, Tsai said that Taiwanese professionals have made great strides in adapting to the unique needs of the region and they care deeply about the quality of their work.
Moving forward, Taiwan is to remain steadfast in its approach to foreign relations, focusing on reciprocity and mutual benefit, she said, adding that it would also seek to strengthen its exchanges with SICA members, with a focus on sharing experiences.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching