Taipei Economic and Cultural Center to offer 2,000 jobs for Lankans

Chennai: In a bid to increase Sri Lanka’s foreign remittances, Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Chennai is offering 2,000 foreign employment opportunities annually for Sri Lanka in Taiwan. This would be mainly for unskilled workers and this scheme will net over USD 2 billion in remittances per annum from them.

“This would be a major game-changer for the Sri Lankan foreign employment sector and it will also for the first time open an employment avenue for Sri Lankans in Taiwan,” said Taipei Economic and Cultural Center Director-General and Consul General in Chennai, who is also in charge of Sri Lanka said Ben Wang, in an EXCLUSIVE interview with Daily News Business.’

He said that, unlike some other countries’ requirements, Sri Lankans applying for these jobs in Taiwan do not have to learn another foreign language or have to undergo intensive pre-training. “They could earn around over USD 500 a month with all expenses paid by their employer.”

He said that with the Ukraine war and C-19 pandemic many large companies are now migrating their business to Taiwan and this has created a major construction boom. “To meet this demand we urgently need around 100,000 unskilled workers and for this several countries have responded.

As Sri Lanka is facing a financial crisis and shortage of Dollars, we thought Taiwan could help by offering around 2,000 opportunities for Sri Lankan workers as an initial step.”

He said that firstly a Taiwan Trade Representation Centre should be opened in Sri Lanka to coordinate the employees’ visas and other logistics. The second would be opened later in Taiwan to attend to other matters. “Similar Trade Representation Centers are opened in many parts of the World including India.”

As of April 2021, 753,000 foreign workers are living in Taiwan and around 22% come from Japan, 10% from the US and the rest from a range of countries including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the UK, and Korea total value of Taiwan exports was USD 446.4 billion.

In addition to the construction sector, there are other openings for Sri Lankans as caregivers, shipping, hospitality and IT and several sectors.

He also congratulated the new Minister of Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara and hoped he would take this proposal forward.

He also said that despite Taiwan being a Buddhist country only a limited promotion was done to woo their high spending tourists to Sri Lanka and direct flights too could be a reality with more arrivals from Taiwan.

“Similarly no major promotions were done to get Taiwan investments to Sri Lanka and both these areas should be pursued.”