Taiwan from December last year to April has lost preferential visa agreements with five governments, the National Audit Office said, calling on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve freedom of travel for Taiwanese.
The nation has preferential visa arrangements with 166 countries and territories as of April, down from the 171 countries late last year, the office said a report.
Preferential visa regimes include arrangements for visa-free travel, on-arrival visa and digital visa verification, it said.
Photo: Yang Cheng-yu, Taipei Times
The ministry in the past five years established electronically-verified visa agreements with Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, as well as visa-free arrangements with Antigua and Barbuda, and Thailand, the office said.
However, the nation lost digitalized visa verification agreements with a myriad of African nations and on-arrival visa agreements with Kazakhstan, and had significant reductions to its visa-free agreement with Colombia, it added.
These developments represent a net loss in the number of preferential visa regimes Taiwan enjoys and the ministry’s failure to mount a timely response to the changes, it said.
The ministry belatedly updated the country information on its Web sites, with some embassies and representative offices being late by more than a month, the office said.
The office urged the ministry to protect Taiwan’s remaining visa regime privileges by making better use of its contacts in foreign governments and international organizations, and promptly update information when negative changes occur.
In response, the ministry said it acknowledged the office’s comments, adding that it would continue to oversee efforts to facilitate the ability of Taiwanese to travel without hindrance and update information in a timely manner.
Taiwan ranked 35th in travel freedom afforded by its passport last year, the Henry Passport Index showed, the worst it has been since 2016.
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