Taiwan, India to ink migrant worker MOU by year-end: Labor minister

Taipei, Nov. 13 (CNA) Labor Minister Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) confirmed Monday that Taiwan and India are expected to ink a memorandum of understanding (MOU) before the end of this year on the hiring of Indian migrant workers to Taiwan.

The Ministry of Labor is currently still in talks with India, however, on when the MOU will be signed, Hsu said on the sidelines of an event in Taipei held for participants of the upcoming 2023 WorldSkills Asia Competition.

Her remarks came after a source told CNA last week that the two sides had almost completed initial discussions on the issue and that the signing of the MOU was scheduled for the end of the year to help Taiwan address its labor shortage.

The source, who declined to be named, also said Taiwan and India had been negotiating the agreement since 2020, but that talks had been stalled for some time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some reports have said Taiwan could open its doors to as many as 100,000 migrant workers from India, but Hsu said the number was still being considered as it depended on the needs of different industries and the qualifications of the workers.

After the MOU is signed, working-level meetings will have to be held by the two parties to iron out the details, the labor minister said, indicating that once they are finalized, there will be an official announcement on the hiring of Indian migrant workers to Taiwan.

At a news conference on Nov. 9, Arindam Bagchi, a spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said he hoped the migrant worker MOU will be signed as soon as possible because the pact is expected to benefit both parties.

"Negotiations by their very nature tend to not have a finite timeline," Bagchi said. "But we hope that they will be concluded in due course and that it will soon be possible to benefit from this mobility partnership."