More than 13,000 foreign diplomatic personnel and Alien Permanent Residence Certificate (APRC) holders are expected to begin benefiting from the Triple Stimulus Voucher program from Monday next week, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
Those who are newly eligible can purchase the vouchers, worth NT$3,000 (US$103.95), at post offices with their APRC or national health insurance card and NT$1,000, or they can transfer the vouchers to a credit card or digital wallet, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said in a report at a Cabinet meeting in Taipei.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would help diplomats acquire their vouchers, the MOEA said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The vouchers are valid through Dec. 31, it said.
National Development Council Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) at a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago proposed that foreign nationals be made eligible for the program, Executive Yuan spokesman Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘) told a news conference after the Cabinet meeting.
Nearly 97 percent of Taiwanese, or 22.97 million people, have received the vouchers since they were launched on July 15.
APRC holders; those who have made special contributions to the nation; those with specific, high-level skills; foreign diplomats; foreign officials from international organizations or foreign government institutions; and other foreign staff have been added to those eligible for the vouchers.
Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) said that the cost of the expanded voucher program is covered by existing funds.
The MOEA expects the program to inject NT$100 billion into the economy.
“We would like to thank foreign nationals before Thanksgiving and Christmas for their contributions to Taiwan and hope that they, too, benefit from the government’s most important stimulus policy this year,” Ting quoted Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) as saying.
When asked about additional stimulus programs following the voucher program, Ting said that the government has no such plans.
However, if such plans are made, the public would be promptly told, he said.
Asked whether the principle of reciprocity was a consideration when changing the voucher eligibility rules, Ting said that the inclusion of foreign diplomats and nationals is a friendly gesture by the government and also to promote Taiwan’s effective measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Some nations have issued subsidies for foreign nationals with work visas, but policies vary from country to country, he said, adding that reciprocity was not a consideration.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS