Throughout our school lives, we meet around a hundred different teachers or so, with most of them becoming barely a face you can’t even remember. But there are a few of them that stand out, not only because we learned a lot from their classes, but because they made an impact in our lives even outside the classroom.
They say travel is the best teacher. You may learn a lot from reading books, but travel goes beyond learning. Travel is a force for good: It broadens our mind, develops cultural empathy, and gives us a better understanding of the world. We travel with our children because we believe these experiences not only improve their social skills but are key to helping them become decent global citizens.
For a lot of Filipinos, their travel map usually begins with Hong Kong and Singapore followed by another Asian country, maybe Thailand, Malaysia or maybe even Cambodia. But since Taiwan granted visa-free entry to Philippine tourists in 2017, it has quickly become one of the must-visit destination for Pinoys.
Philippine tourism arrivals in Taiwan increased 44 percent in 2018 and the Taiwan Tourism Bureau said it expects the number of Pinoy tourists to reach 500,000 this year, especially with the extension of its visa-free policy until July 31,2020.
And with or without a new Mikey Bustos jingle, it’s easy to fall in love with Taiwan with all sorts of food you can try, places to visit and things do.
But more than just a cultural haven for travelers, Taiwan is also a place where a lot of technological innovations take place.
Taiwan is also a big trading partner of the Philippines, and is our eighth-largest trading partner, 10th-largest export market, eighth-biggest source of imports in 2017, as well as the eighth-biggest foreign direct investor in 2018.
In recent years, the world has seen Taiwan transition into becoming the global powerhouse it is today with great, innovative value for countless consumers, and cutting-edge products that are proudly Taiwan made.
It has proven its prowess in life-changing technology—from healthcare to education and mobility and, as I discovered recently, in iformation and communications yechnology (ICT), artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).
Taiwan has been the pivot of the global economy of ICT since the 1980s, with huge partnerships among IT giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, to name a few. The country has become one of the world’s largest sources of semiconductors, personal computing, mobile devices, broadband appliances and display markets, which have provided for 16 percent of their gross domestic product.
In the rise of AI and IoT, Taiwan has widened its integrity beyond modern manufacturing chain, now as an inventive economy of intellectual property and innovators. This overall competitiveness includes first rate talent, prolific value chain, and resilient entrepreneurial capability, ready to drive new industries of the future worldwide.
Over 95 percent of Taiwanese companies are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which have adapted ICT applications and domain knowledge in the sectors of manufacturing, services, education, healthcare, transportation, logistics, e-commerce, smart living, green energy, and public services. This new entrepreneurial culture is a best practice in driving the progress of the Philippines’s SME-driven economy. Thus, last July 24 and 25, Taiwan Excellence, organized by Bureau of Foreign Trade and Taiwan External Trade Development Council, was at the forefront of the Asia IoT Business Platform in Manila Marriott Hotel.
“We see progress in the Philippines’s ICT sector and Taiwan will be happy to contribute to this growth and help Filipino enterprises further succeed in their operations,” said Wen-Chung Chang, director of the Economic Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines.
Taiwan is determined to advocate for innovation, improve employment and income distribution, and to create a more balanced regional development, by leveraging the immense momentum of many markets at present.