In political news, President Ma Ying-jeou and Foreign Minister Timothy Yang both attended the opening ceremony of a new exhibition at the AIT yesterday, where the issue of Taiwan's inclusion of the US visa-waiver program was once again brought up.

During the opening of the American Institute in Taiwan's "American Footsteps in Southern Taiwan" exhibition, Foreign Affairs Minister Timothy Yang said that he is optimistic a visa-waiver agreement can be reached with the United States next year.

The U.S. previously set several prerequisites for such an agreement, including a visa application rejection rate of less than 3%, a higher percentage of in-person passport applications, and fewer abscondence cases.

American Institute in Taiwan Director William Stanton reiterated the conditions on Friday.

Taiwan's visa application rejection rate was 2.2% this year, and the government will implement in-person passport application measures next year.

Meanwhile, the number of absondences in the U.S. has always been low.

Apart from the visa-waiver agreement, Taiwan also hopes to sign lost and stolen passport information sharing, anti-terrorism information exchange, and mutual crime-fighting agreements with the U.S.

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