A government-run information hotline for foreign residents has in the first 10 months of the year received nearly eight times the number of calls it had in the same period last year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.
From January to October, the hotline (0800-024-111) received 287,056 calls, the majority of which were concerning questions about policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.
The high volume of calls this year was in sharp contrast to the trend in the previous few years, where the Internet and other means of accessing information had led to a reduction in the number of calls received annually, it said.
The ministry began offering information on pandemic response measures in a variety of languages through the hotline starting on Jan. 28, it said.
Although there were 5,815 fewer foreign residents in Taiwan as of last month compared with the same month last year, there are still 851,780 foreign residents in the nation, meaning that demand for information on border control measures has been high, it said.
The National Immigration Agency has also set up information counters on the measures at government offices throughout the nation, through which it also provides referral services, the ministry said.
The majority of calls (63 percent) concerned questions related to the impact of pandemic response measures on Alien Resident Certificate and Alien Permanent Residence Certificate holders, while 9.4 percent pertained to government benefits and 7.6 percent were related to health services, it said.
Most calls were from people in Taipei, followed by New Taipei City and Hualien, the ministry said.
The hotline provides services in Cambodian, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Mandarin, Thai and Vietnamese, it said, adding that English, Japanese and Mandarin services are available 24 hours per day, every day.
Services in Vietnamese are available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm, while services in Cambodian, Indonesian and Thai are available Monday to Friday from 1pm to 5pm, except on public holidays.
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
GLOBAL PROJECT: Underseas cables ‘are the nervous system of democratic connectivity,’ which is under stress, Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said The government yesterday launched an initiative to promote global cooperation on improved security of undersea cables, following reported disruptions of such cables near Taiwan and around the world. The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to “bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a seminar in Taipei. The project would be known as “RISK,” an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform and knowledge building, he said at the seminar, titled “Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum.” Taiwan sits at a vital junction on
LONG-HELD POSITION: Washington has repeatedly and clearly reiterated its support for Taiwan and its long-term policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday said that Taiwan should not be concerned about being used as a bargaining chip in the ongoing US-China trade talks. “I don’t think you’re going to see some trade deal where, if what people are worried about is, we’re going to get some trade deal or we’re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan,” Rubio told reporters aboard his airplane traveling between Israel and Qatar en route to Asia. “No one is contemplating that,” Reuters quoted Rubio as saying. A US Treasury spokesman yesterday told reporters
RSS