Representatives from the civic group Taiwan-India Association on Friday joined Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Mark Ho (何志偉) to endorse boosting bilateral trade collaboration in labor workforce management with India.
“India is a very important country for the New Southbound Policy, and we have close cooperation in bilateral trade, business and industry investment, while planning to bring Indian workers to fill in Taiwan’s acute labor shortage situation,” Ho told a press conference in Taipei.
“However, we have seen the circulation of disinformation online alleging our government will soon open up the country to 100,000 Indian migrant workers. They also claim that Taiwan would be full of sexual assault incidents, and even called for a street protest to oppose the policy,” he said.
Photo: CNA
“All these are rumors have no basis in truth. It is not possible to bring in 100,000 migrant workers in one shot... We believe it was part of ‘cognitive warfare’ efforts by foreign forces, to derail closer collaboration between Taiwan and India,” Ho said.
“We don’t want Taiwanese to have misleading notions about Indian citizens. We are here to tell everyone that Taiwanese are not hostile to Indians, that Taiwan is a country full of friendly and hospitable people,” he added.
Taiwan has a shortage of about 60,000 to 80,000 workers, said Hu Hsin-yeh (胡欣野), a senior officer from the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency.
“Our workforce is dwindling due to Taiwan becoming an aging society with a low birthrate and a decline in workers under 45,” she said.
“Industry sectors have asked the government to deal with the labor shortage, although there are already more than 750,000 migrant workers in Taiwan, mainly from Southeast Asian countries,” she added.
Taiwan-India Association executive Sun Chi-pen (孫治本) cited information from 2020, indicating that more than 1.8 million Indians work abroad, and over half are in the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman, where they are hired to work on public projects, as well as in construction and the agriculture sector.
“We have not heard of major crimes, or sexual assault cases from these countries,” he said.
Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association Vice Chairman Tenzin Namda, who has Tibetan heritage and has obtained Indian citizenship, said that India has a population of about 1.4 billion and naturally there are a few “bad people.”
“But overall, India is a law-abiding society full of energetic activities. Most Indian citizens in the US are white-collar professionals working in the health and medicine, information technology and financial sectors.” he said.
“They are good quality talents, and have brought huge driving force to power US economic growth,” he said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
Singapore is to allow imports of Taiwanese raw pork for the first time in 15 years, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The Singapore Food Agency has approved imports of fresh pork produced by New Taipei City-based Cha I Shan Foods, which had obtained a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from the ministry to export to Singapore, it said. The ministry said it had hoped Singapore would permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports in addition to processed pork products. Singapore agreed to accept Taiwanese fresh pork after completing a document review and a virtual tour of Cha I Shan Foods’ packing
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said the city “does not tolerate violence” after the Taipei City Council reported death threats over a planned screening today of a documentary on alleged forced organ harvesting in China. The council’s report follows a flurry of similar threats targeting theaters and institutions screening the documentary, titled State Organs, which accuses Chinese officials of harvesting organs from incarcerated dissidents and Falun Gong members. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors who planned to screen the film told a news conference earlier yesterday that the organizers of the screening had received a threat of a knife attack signed
RSS