Taiwan offices upgraded in HK and Macau

Lai said that starting July 15, the office in Hong Kong, which has been known as the Chung Hwa Travel Service since its inception in 1966, will be renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Macau will also be renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Macau, Lai said.

Lai said over the past 45 years, Chung Hwa Travel Service in Hong Kong has been frequently mistaken as a private travel service agency because of the misleading nature of its title, although it's Taiwan's de facto representative office in the former British colony.

“The designation fails to manifest its true status as our official representative office in Hong Kong, and over the past 45 years Taiwan has repeatedly tried, but in vain, to get the designation rectified,” Lai said.

She stressed that the success this time around indicates an improvement in relations with Hong Kong.

The new designation is the same as that of Taiwan's representative offices in countries with which Taiwan maintains no formal diplomatic ties, according to Lai.

She continued that the renamed representative office in Hong Kong will be able to make direct contacts with related units under the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, and the restriction on the number of staffers of the rep office will be lifted.

The MAC started to negotiate in November 2010 with the Hong Kong government on renaming and upgrading Taiwan's representative office in the special administrative region, and both sides finally reached an agreement on the issue following eight months of talks, according to Lai.

The Hong Kong government has agreed to grant a spate of preferential treatments to staffers of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office there, such as tax exemption on salary income, reasonable duration of residence in Hong Kong, free entry visas, and picking up VIPs at restricted areas at airports or harbors, etc, Lai noted.

She added that the renamed representative office in Macau will enjoy almost the same preferential treatments.

Moreover, she continued, the offices set up by Taiwan's Government Information Office and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Hong Kong — the Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center and the Hong Kong Branch Office of Far East Trade Service Inc. — will remain operational as units under the representative office's information and commerce divisions.

Lai further said that Taiwan has approved applications by Hong Kong and Macau to set up representative offices in Taiwan.

A Hong Kong official said earlier in the day that the Hong Kong government's official representative office in Taiwan will be inaugurated later this year, ushering in a new era in Taiwan-Hong Kong relations.

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