From August next year, the annual review of the visa-free program for tourists from Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines and Russia is to be extended to once every three years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
“The visa-free treatment granted to the four countries is to expire on July 31, 2020. By that time, the evaluation on whether to extend that privilege will be conducted every three years,” MOFA spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement.
In August 2016, Taiwan began allowing citizens from Thailand and Brunei 14-day visa-free entry into the country as part of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) New Southbound Policy.
The program was expanded to the Philippines in November 2017 and Russia in September last year.
In past reviews, the four countries had their visa-free privileges extended due to their citizens’ low involvement in illegal activities while in Taiwan. The maximum number of days Russians are allowed to stay in Taiwan was extended from 14 to 21 in July.
The government decided not to include Indonesia and Vietnam in its visa-free program “due to border management and national security considerations,” the ministry said.
However, the approval procedures for visa applications from citizens of the two countries would be simplified.
“Visa applications by citizens of Indonesia and Vietnam are to be reviewed by Taiwanese tourism officials based in those countries instead of the applications being sent to Taiwan, and visas are to be issued by local Taiwan representative offices to shorten the processing time,” the ministry said.
The ministry said that agencies are discussing ways to attract more tourists from six countries in the Middle East that are covered in Taiwan’s electronic visa program — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Taiwan is eager to develop tourism markets in the Gulf states, as tourists from there have high spending power, it said, adding it is confident of achieving this goal, because Taiwan was ranked third on this year’s Global Muslim Travel Index, which lists the most Islamic-friendly destinations.
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