Manila, Oct. 5 (CNA) A senior Taiwanese official on Sunday said his government welcomes overseas ethnic Chinese youths to study in Taiwan and after graduating, "if you like Taiwan, you can choose to stay."

Steven Chen, minister of the Overseas Community Affairs Council, encouraged young people in the Philippines to take advantage of a new Taiwanese program for recruiting non-Taiwanese graduates to join its workforce.

Under the "action plan" announced in July, foreign students graduating from Taiwanese institutes of higher learning who pass an evaluation of eight factors such as language ability and educational background will be issued an employment permit by the Ministry of Labor.

Taiwan hopes the plan, which aims to "nurture, retain and recruit" talent for Taiwan's workforce, will draw 2,000 in its first year.

Pitching it as a win-win-win policy, Chen said accepting more overseas students could reduce the pressure on Taiwanese universities troubled by lower birth rates, find a market for Taiwanese university teachers to sell their abilities, and boost Taiwan's competitiveness by recruiting competent young workers from among local college graduates.

Chen promoted that policy while attending an event in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of an ethnic Chinese youth service group soon after his arrival in Manila Saturday.

He did so again Sunday morning during a meeting of executives of Chinese schools in the Philippines, accompanied by Lin Song-huann, Taiwan's top envoy to the neighboring country.

Lin echoed Chen's remarks by noting that Taiwan's beauty lies not just in its infrastructure and natural environment, but also in its inheriting and improving of Chinese culture.

"Advancing studies in Taiwanese colleges and universities will be a wise choice for your students," Lin told the Chinese schools' leaders.

During his whirlwind visits to various ethnic Chinese groups, Chen said he was meeting "current good friends" and "re-bonding with old ones who had been somewhat alienated" over the past years.

He thanked the ethnic Chinese community's support for the government of the Republic of China in the first years after moving to Taiwan in 1949.

The investments in Taiwan by ethnic Chinese in the Philippines during the 1950s and the 1960s had helped Taiwan develop its economy, and it's particularly heart-warming to recall how the ethnic Chinese youth groups had visited Taiwan to cheer up its armed forces, Chen said.

文章來源: http://focustaiwan.tw/news/afav/201410050024.aspx