Former Urdaneta City mayor now MECO chairman

By US News Agency / Asian

Former three-term Urdaneta City Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. has assumed as chairman of the board of directors and chief executive with the rank of ambassador of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan.

MECO is a private entity duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) tasked to oversee the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Taiwan, numbering some 85,000.

Apart from looking into the problems of OFWs in Taiwan, MECO is also tasked to promote tourism and trade relations between the Philippines and Taiwan.

MECO, which has a counterpart in Manila called Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), is now also making initiatives to convince Taiwanese to invest in the Philippines.

Perez, who also served in congress for three terms, said his office is now making arrangements with the Taiwanese government so that agri-fishery experts from that country can transfer their technology to fish-farmers in the Philippines.

According to Perez, MECO serves as a consular office of the Philippines in Taiwan.

On account of its One China Policy, the Philippines can not open a regular consular office in Taiwan, except an unofficial one through the MECO.

But being a private entity, MECO’s operational funding does not come from the government but from part of the visa fees collected from Taiwanese businessmen and tourists coming to the Philippines.