Some Practical Issues in Applying to Bring Mainland Chinese to Taiwan on Business

By Article 10 of the Statute Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, people from Mainland China cannot enter the Taiwan area without permission from the proper authorities. Nonetheless, the government authorities in Taiwan have been weighing the need for national security against the demands of transnational businesses, and have considered loosening the criteria on enterprises requesting to have mainlanders come to Taiwan - as in, e.g., internal staff transfers within multinationals, business trips, training programs in Taiwan, introduction of mainland industrial technology, engaging in R&D in Taiwan - and in recent years they have been earnestly coordinating the relevant agencies in discussions to examine how they might relax the related criteria. The hope is that giving mainland businesspeople opportunities to visit Taiwan will stabilize cross-Strait development by building trust and understanding on both sides.

Accordingly, prior to February 1, 2005, Taiwan’s government had endeavored to meet people’s needs principally through two regulations under which mainland professionals could be permitted to come to Taiwan for business activities. One was "Regulations Governing Permission for Mainland Individuals to Come to Taiwan to Engage in Business-related Activities at the Invitation of Multinational Corporations, Businesses in Free Trade Ports and Taiwan Area Businesses of a Certain Scale". The other was "Regulations Governing Permission for Mainland Area Professionals to Come to Taiwan to Engage in Professional Activities".

Yet, in practice, the widespread perception in the local business community was that the then current rules were overly complex and detailed, with too many restrictions. They favored loosening restrictions on the qualifications and numbers of mainlanders coming to engage in business activity, to truly accommodate the needs of business and trade exchanges. In the government’s analysis of the system at the time, also, an appropriate degree of simplification was thought to be needed in order for Taiwan to honor the commitments it made respecting the General Agreement on Trade in Services, as part of its bid to become a WTO member, and to inject some agility in cross-Strait business exchanges.

Consequently, the government has tried to simplify the relevant rules while following the principle of opening up and perfecting the security management system incrementally and in the proper order, starting by combining, into one applicable statute, all the rules on inviting mainland businesspeople for short-term business activities contained in the two sets of regulations mentioned above (i.e., “Regulations Governing Permission for Mainland Area Individuals to Come to Taiwan to Engage in Business-related Activities at the Invitation of Multinational Corporations, Businesses in a Free Trade Port and Taiwan Area Businesses of a Certain Scale” and “Regulations Governing Permission for Mainland Area Professionals to come to Taiwan to Engage in Professional Activities”). Thus was drafted “Regulations Governing Permission for People from the Mainland Area Coming to Taiwan to Engage in Business Activity”, which was formally launched when promulgated by the Ministry of the Interior on February 1 of this year.

The kinds of business-related activity currently covered by “Regulations Governing Permission for People from the Mainland Area Coming to Taiwan to Engage in Business Activity” include the following: (1) business visits; (2) business exploration; (3) business conferences; (4) lectures; (5) business study; (6) examination of goods, after-sales service and other contract performance service activities; (7) participation in trade fairs and expos; and (8) attendance at trade fairs and expos.

Qualifying criteria for the inviting entity have also been loosened. Inviters only have to be one of the following:

• A multinational corporation, overseas Chinese business or branch of an overseas corporation with annual operating income over NT$10,000,000, or a Taiwan branch (of a newly established foreign company) with working capital of over NT$5,000,000;
• A Taiwan business office of a foreign company, which office has more than NT$1,000,000 in actual purchases. However, Taiwan business offices in the financial services sector are not subject to the limit on actual purchases;
• A free port zone business as defined in Article 3, paragraph 2 of the “Statute Governing the Establishment and Management of Free Ports”.