Taiwan and India are close to signing a migration and mobility deal in a potential solution to the labor shortage across large swathes of the Taiwanese economy, an India-based newspaper said on Tuesday.
Representatives of the two governments anticipate a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to materialize next month at the earliest, the Hindustan Times said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
Taiwan suffers from worker shortages in manufacturing, construction, household work, agriculture and fisheries, the sources said, adding that Taipei has been viewing India as a possible source of labor.
Taiwanese officials expressed interest in northeastern India due to the similarities the region bears to Taiwanese culture and preferences in food, the newspaper cited them as saying.
Bilateral trade has been growing steadily in recent years, with India ranking as Taiwan’s 14th-largest export destination and its 18th-largest source of imports, it said, adding that trade volume has increased from US$1.19 billion to US$8.4 billion between 2001 and last year.
The signing of the MOU would move the development of bilateral trade in the right direction, and has immense potential, Manharsinh Laxmanbhai Yadav, director general of India-Taipei Association, said during a negotiation earlier this month.
Taiwan and India have no official diplomatic ties, but there are representative offices which were mutually established in 1995, and both countries are bound by shared agreements on tariffs, taxes and investments.
Recently, Taiwanese tech enterprises, including the Hon Hai Group, Delta Electronics, Wistron and Pegatron, as well as maritime shipping, manufacturing and gaming industries have made investments in India in response to global supply chain adjustments.
The Ministry of Labor said that Taiwan as of last month employed 746,596 migrant workers in traditional industries and the caregiving sector, with the majority of that workforce insisting of Indonesian, Vietnamese, Filipino and Thai migrants.
The nation also recruits workers from Malaysia and Mongolia, but without much success because only single-digit numbers of workers hailed from these countries.
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