A 43-member Slovak delegation led by the country’s deputy economics minister arrived in Taiwan yesterday evening. It is the highest-level visit by the EU member state since it opened a representative office in Taiwan in 2003.
The delegation, led by Slovakian Second State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy Karol Galek, arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:38pm.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) greeted the delegation as they disembarked from their aircraft, which bore the Slovakian national emblem and the title “Slovak Republic” on its side.
Photo: EPA-EFE
During the visit, Galek is to cohost the first Taiwan-Slovakia cross-ministerial economics meeting, which is to cover two-way investment, education, culture and tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement.
The delegation of 18 senior officials and 25 business representatives is to stay in Taiwan until Friday, the ministry said.
The visit comes at the invitation of National Development Council Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), who led a 66-member delegation to Slovakia in October.
Photo: Yao Kai-shiou, Liberty Times
While Kung was in Slovakia, the two sides signed seven memorandums of understanding aimed at increasing bilateral collaboration in trade and technology, the council said.
Taiwan’s ties with the central European country have improved in the past few months, with Slovakia signing a legal assistance agreement with Taiwan in August and donating 160,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses in September.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying