Taiwan’s coronavirus success, job opportunities lure foreigners to talent-thirsty island

Taiwan is becoming increasingly attractive for expats, with the number of foreigners obtaining residency permits and entrepreneur visas climbing in recent years

The island is tempting international professionals with its successful handling of the pandemic, its media freedoms and ‘gold card’ scheme for skilled workers

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A total of 792,401 foreigners had obtained Taiwan residency permits as of November last year, despite global travel restrictions, National Immigration Administration data showed. The figure was up from 785,341 for the whole of 2019 and 758,583 in 2018. Photo: AP

Published: 1:00pm, 12 Jan 2021Updated: 11:33pm, 12 Jan 2021

When Tom Fifield first visited Taiwan as a tourist in 2008, it did not take him long to realise it was the place for him.

“One of the earlier experiences that really struck home was standing on a street corner and looking a little lost,” Fifield said. “Every single time without fail someone would come up and use their best attempt at English and try to help me.”

So when the former Melbournian got a remote job as community manager for the OpenStack Foundation, which backs the cloud computing platform OpenStack, he moved to the capital Taipei in 2013.

Fifield eventually launched a corporate management consultancy and, in September, the government made the rare offer of Taiwanese citizenship because they saw him as a “high-level professional”.

It’s been amazing to see an accelerated increase of foreign professionals, some who had previously been unfamiliar with Taiwan

David Chang

Fifield might be the envy of expatriates today. Taiwan has one of the world’s smallest Covid-19 caseloads, despite its population of 24 million and proximity to the original epicentre of the coronavirus, mainland China.

At the same time, visa rules are easing as Taiwanese officials warm to foreign talent, particularly Silicon Valley types drawn to the island’s 50-year strong reputation as a global tech hardware hub and journalists covering Greater China.