The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday awarded visiting Czech Senator Pavel Fischer a medal of friendship in recognition of his contributions to promoting closer relations between the countries.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) conferred the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy on Fischer during a ceremony at the ministry’s offices in Taipei.
Fischer, chair of the Czech Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security Committee, is known for being friendly toward Taiwan, notably helping facilitate Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s historic trip to Taiwan in September 2020, the ministry said in a news release.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
During that visit, Vystrcil became the first incumbent speaker from a foreign parliament to address the Legislative Yuan in 45 years, the ministry said.
Fischer also helped Taiwan procure COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Czech Republic in 2020, and initiated several pro-Taiwan proposals in the Czech Senate, including one passed unanimously calling for Taiwan to participate in the annual World Health Assembly in 2021, it said.
The senator arrived early yesterday for a three-day visit.
In other developments, Taiwan on Monday officially opened a representative office in Montreal, its fourth office in Canada, in part to build closer ties with the technology hub and support overseas Taiwanese in French-speaking Quebec.
Representative to Canada Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) and office chief Rita Chen (陳珮瑩), who most recently served as Taiwan’s deputy representative to New York, oversaw a ceremony opening the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, Montreal, also known as Bureau Economique et Culturel de Taipei a Montreal.
In a prerecorded address aired at the ceremony, Wu said the latest office in Canada showed Taiwan’s determination to expand its relations with the North American country on all fronts.
Tseng said the opening of the Montreal office came in response to years of anticipation from overseas Taiwanese in Quebec and reflected the high priority Taiwan’s government puts on ties with Canada.
The ceremony was also attended by several Canadian lawmakers, including Judy Sgro, chair of the Taiwan-Canada Parliamentary Friendship Group; Pierre Paul-Hus; Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay; and Denis Trudel.
The ministry said it chose Montreal as the site for its newest office in Canada because it is the largest city in Quebec, and is known as a technology hub, notably in video game and artificial intelligence development.
The city is also home to the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The Montreal office would be responsible for Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
Taiwan’s main representative office is in the capital, Ottawa, and it also has branch offices in Toronto and Vancouver.
The Montreal office’s address is 2310-1800 McGill College Ave, Montreal, QC H3A 3J6, Canada, and its telephone number is 1-514-282-8008. Its Web site is www.roc-taiwan.org/cayul.
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
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,
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),
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
RSS