President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is taking steps to expand job opportunities for Southeast Asian immigrants in the tourism industry, particularly for tour guides, in keeping with the government’s “new southbound policy.”
During a joint briefing yesterday, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Tourist Guide Association advised Southeast Asian immigrants on the procedure for obtaining tour guide licenses.
The briefing was held in line with the government’s new southbound policy, which is aimed at increasing the diversity of Taiwan’s trade partners so that the nation is not overreliant on the Chinese market, the agency said.
Saying that the number of Southeast Asian travelers and immigrants in Taiwan is rising, the NIA added that the government hopes to help spur an increase in job opportunities for Southeast Asian-language tour guides and boost tourism from that area.
Vietnamese Fan Shih Pei Liu said she was pleased to see the government offering greater assistance to immigrants like her. Fan, who obtained a tour guide license in 2014, said that back then, it was difficult to obtain information on the process for an immigrant to become a tour guide in Taiwan.
She said her plan is to build her professional knowledge and skills so that she can take Vietnamese visitors on tours around the nation.
Linda Tjindiawati, an Indonesian with a master’s degree from a British university, said that after she married a Taiwanese, she was not sure what work she would find in Taiwan.
A tour guide job has the added benefit of allowing the guide to learn more about different places in Taiwan, said Tjindiawati, whose daughter also attended the briefing to gain information about Indonesian-language employment opportunities in the nation.
The number of travelers from Southeast Asian to Taiwan has more than doubled over the past 10 years, rising from 638,939 in 2005 to more than 1.4 million last year, according to Tourism Bureau statistics.
Malaysians accounted for the largest number of visitors from the region last year, followed by Singaporeans and Indonesians.
As of the end of last month, there were about 144,000 foreign spouses from Southeast Asia living in Taiwan, with Vietnamese making up the largest number, according to NIA statistics.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the