The government will encourage local universities to list foreign language proficiency among the graduation criteria for students so as to strengthen the competitiveness of the country's labor force, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said Wednesday. The measure is one of several strategies put forward by the CEPD to boost the development of Taiwan's service sector. Other steps to be adopted by the government include providing foreign language courses for workers in the service sector, especially those in the medical and travel sectors, the CEPD said in a briefing to the Cabinet. According to Premier Liu Chao-shiuan, Taiwan's business sector is undergoing a structural change in which services play a crucial role. Therefore, the government should support the development of the service sector by promoting measures that take advantage of Taiwan's culture and human resources, Liu said. According to the CEPD, the government's objective is to raise the service sector's contribution to the country's gross domestic product to NT$11 trillion by 2012. To achieve this goal, the government will promote the export of replicable services, explore business opportunities in emerging markets such as China, and seek to internationalize Taiwanese food to boost food exports, the CEPD said. In 2008, services exported by Taiwan were valued at US$33.59 billion, accounting for 0.9 percent of the world's total value and making Taiwan the world's 26th- largest services exporter. The ranking, however, marked a significant decline from 2000, when Taiwan was in 18th place. The CEPD said that in addition to weak export competitiveness, Taiwan's service sector is facing several other problems, such as insufficient investment in research, development and innovation, and low productivity. 