The government is seeking to increase opportunities for young people to work legally while traveling in Germany next year amid greater-than-expected demand for the working holiday program launched on Oct. 11, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
“Thousands of Taiwanese youth have been calling the German Institute Taipei to inquire about the working holiday program, while the number of applicants who have registered for an interview has exceeded 300,” James Lee (李光章), the director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs, told a press conference.
Taiwanese and German representatives signed a joint statement on Oct. 10 last year, with each side offering 200 multiple-entry visas for a working holiday program under which people aged 18 to 30 can work in the other country for up to one year.
Taiwan’s plan to increase the quota next year was well received, with the German Institute Taipei saying it would ask the German government to give the request first priority, Lee said.
Germany was the first European country and fifth in the world to sign a working holiday program with Taiwan, after Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada.
Lee said data on the number of German youth who had applied for the program was not yet available.
Meanwhile, Lee said last year saw a significant increase in the number of Taiwanese traveling to the UK since the inclusion of Taiwan in the British visa-waiver program in March last year.
UK Border Agency statistics showed that the number of Taiwanese visitors for short-term recreational and business purposes last year rose 107 percent to 54,170 from 26,095 in 2008.
Excluding business travelers, the number of Taiwanese visitors to the UK surged 150 percent last year, while the number of Taiwanese students in the UK rose 70 percent last year, he said.
Last year also saw a surge in visits by UK passport holders to Taiwan to 80,935, from 51,980 in 2008, Lee said.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
PRO-CHINA SLOGANS: Two DPP members criticized police officers’ lack of action at the scene, saying that law enforcement authorities should investigate the incident Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taipei on Tuesday held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.” Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day. A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration. “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles. Radio Free Asia reported that some of the demonstrators
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS