Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/27
By: Elaine Hou and Ko Li 

Taipei, March 27 (CNA) Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Tuesday it has lodged a complaint with Forbes magazine over a misleading article that describes wages in Taiwan as comparable to those of Mexico.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has lodged a formal complaint with the magazine and asked it to rectify the problem, MOFA spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) told CNA.

Titled “Why Taiwan’s wages are as low as Mexico’s,” the article published on March 19 claimed that the average monthly salary of Taiwanese workers was US$1,288 last year, which is a few dollars higher than Mexican workers, who made US$1,276 per month.

However, the wage figure for Taiwan quoted in the Forbes article does not include overtime pay and bonuses, and was not calculated based on purchasing power parity (PPP), as the Mexican figure was, according to an earlier MOFA release.   [FULL STORY]