Taiwan-Brunei relations are gradually moving forward amid challenges, especially in the areas of agriculture, tourism, trade, education and people-to-people exchanges, Taiwan Representative to Brunei Andrew Lee (李憲章) said on Friday.
Lee, who assumed his post in August last year, spoke about the development of bilateral relations in a telephone interview with the Central News Agency.
People-to-people connections between Taiwan and Brunei are deep, Lee said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
For example, 10.3 percent, or about 47,000, of Brunei’s population of 460,000 people have ethnic Chinese ancestry. Among them, 80 percent can be traced to Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Island, he said.
In the 1960s, when Southeast Asia was wary of communist infiltration, many ethnic Chinese in Brunei chose to study the Chinese language in Taiwan rather than in China, he said.
After returning, those students formed the Taiwan Graduates Association of Brunei. Today, the association, together with the Taiwan Business Association in Brunei Darussalam, continue to work to enhance Taiwan-Brunei relations, Lee said.
In terms of economic links, Brunei’s small market and its heavy reliance on natural gas and oil exports has limited trade with Taiwan. Last year, Taiwan-Brunei bilateral trade was US$170 million, making Brunei Taiwan’s 75th-largest trading partner.
In an effort to improve this situation, Lee has helped more than 30 Taiwanese companies participate in trade shows in Brunei for purposes of business matching.
He also invited a major fruit dealer in Brunei to visit Taiwan in November last year, which resulted in deals being signed with Taiwanese farmers.
In line with Brunei’s Vision 2035, which aims to boost economic diversification, Lee said that he sees prospects for agricultural cooperation.
“Taiwan is willing to introduce Agriculture 4.0, which incorporates new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and biodetection systems, to help Brunei achieve its goal of self-reliance in agricultural products,” Lee said.
Other experiences he said that Taiwan could share with Brunei include the development of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, which have created about 9 million employment opportunities in Taiwan, and the logistics industry, which could help boost Brunei’s retail industry.
Lee said that he hopes to introduce Taiwan’s vocational education system to Brunei, as well as to introduce Brunei to Taiwanese businesspeople as a springboard to other Halal food markets.
Due to the increased influence of China, the Bruneian government is cautious when engaging with Taiwan, he said.
“It is important to let the Bruneian government understand that Taiwan is here for friendship and cooperation,” Lee said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS