Taiwan is encouraging more Filipinos to apply for its foreign English teacher program next year.

In 2022 alone, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) Representative Peiyung Hsu said a total of 77 Filipino-English teachers and 11 teaching assistants have been selected from 6,000 applicants.

“We welcome more teachers to join the project next year,” he said in a speech on Friday.

The Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program (TFETP) was initiated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education to recruit foreign English teachers and create more opportunities for Taiwanese students to learn English in schools.

Apart from this, Hsu said Taiwan also looks forward to strengthening interactions with Manila on trade and investment, agriculture, health and medicine, tourism, and climate change resilience.

As it extends the visa-free entry program for Filipinos to July 31, 2023 and reopens borders to all visitors on October 13, 2022, Hsu is hoping more Filipinos would visit Taiwan again.

Taiwan was the Philippines’ 5th top tourist source market in 2019.

In bilateral trade, meanwhile, Taiwan was Philippines’ 9th largest trading partner, as well as the 9th biggest foreign direct investor in 2021.

“Taiwanese businesses have been investing in the Philippines since 1960s. There are currently around 600 plus Taiwanese companies operating in the Philippines, and the number continues to grow,” Hsu said.

“I have full confidence in the mutually beneficial relations between Taiwan and the Philippines,” he noted. (PNA)