Thursday October 22, 2009
Relax visa regulations for Taiwanese
BY NELSON BENJAMIN
JOHOR BARU: Malaysia will attract more Taiwanese investors and tourists if it eased visa regulations for them.
In making the call, Taipei Investors Association of Malaysia (TIAM) national president Datuk Dr Ting Chung Cheng said that to attract more Taiwanese, Malaysia should relax visa requirements including looking at the possibility of abolishing it completely.
“Presently, Malaysians going to Taiwan do not need visas while Taiwanese coming to Malaysia have to pay about RM22 if applying in Taiwan and RM330 if they obtain visa upon arrival,” he said.
He added that Japan had recently relaxed its visa requirements for Taiwanese and has since enjoyed more than 20% increase in the number of tourist arrivals.
Token of appreciation: Dr Ting presenting a memento to Dr Koh during TIAM’s recent Annual General Meeting in Johor Baru. Dr Ting was outlining the visa requirement as one of the three problems faced by Taiwanese businesses in Malaysia, apart from labour shortage and unavailability of bank loans.
“Several companies in the manufacturing sector have decided to shut down due to lack of funds from banks,” he said, adding that the association presently had about 500 members nationwide.
On the labour shortage, he said that almost all Taiwanese companies were facing the problem.
He was speaking at TIAM’s annual general meeting, which was opened by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon.
Dr Koh in his speech said that he would forward all the three issues raised by TIAM to his respective ministers handling these portfolios.
He said that Taiwan was an important trading partner as over the years, Taiwanese companies had invested US$10bil (RM35.6bil) in Malaysia.
In 2008, Taiwanese investments in Malaysia stood at US$263mil (RM936mil) compared with only US$120mil (RM427mil) the year before, he said, urging Taiwanese companies to also invest in other sectors including halal food processing, petrochemical and biotechnology.
Source:
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