Members of a legislative standing committee reached an agreement to cut the application fee for machine-readable regular passports from NT$1,600 ($55 USD) to NT$1,300 ($43 USD), starting next year. Additionally, the price of electronic passports valid only between three and five years, will be lowered from NT$1,200 ($41 USD) to NT$900 ($30 USD).
Read more: Taiwanese electronic passport application fees set to drop in 2013
The lab is part of the government’s plans to enhance the use of cloud computing in Taiwan. Earlier this month, the government announced a NT$7 billion (US$237.3 million) cloud-building programme to encourage growth in Taiwan’s information and communication technology sector and improve government services and functions.
Read more: Taiwan Starts Testing for US$237 million Cloud Project
Hsiao Mei-li, director of international affairs at the institute, said Taiwan will help the Hanoi government establish a 5-10 year plan to gradually phase out the city's offline documentation system and introduce Taiwan's successful experience from the past 30 years in building an e-government system.
Read more: Taiwan signs deal with Vietnam to help establish e-government system
The app includes features such as the 110 police service line, the 113 abuse prevention line, the 165 fraud prevention line, fugitive and stolen car information, missing person reports, road traffic information, police case reports and a taxi calling.
The KEI is an aggregate index representing a nation or region's overall preparedness to compete in the Knowledge Economy based on four pillars: the economic incentive and institutional regime (EIR), innovation and technological adoption, education and training, and information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure.
Taiwan's knowledge economy competitiveness has continuously improved over the past 12 years, with the ranking rising from 16th in 2000 to 13th this year, and the gap with other leading nations decreasing.