The government plans to raise the service charge for Taiwan's 10-year electronic passport from the current NT$1,200 (US$36.36) to NT$1,600, starting next January, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said Sunday. Taiwan began to issue passports embedded with integrated circuit chips, commonly known as e-passports, on Dec. 29, 2008, becoming the 60th country in the world to issue IC passports for anti-forgery purposes. 'We had designated the first year of the e-passport issuance as a promotion period and have thus maintained the service charge at the original NT$1,200 for each passport, but over the long run, the price will have to be raised because the cost of an e-passport is much higher, ' said Lo Yu-chung, director-general of the MOFA's Bureau of Consular Affairs. According to Lo, the ministry has come up with a draft package of new regulations for passport service fees, which has been approved by the Executive Yuan and referred to the Legislature for screening. If all goes well, Lo said, the service fee for a standard 10-year Republic of China IC passport will be raised to NT$1,600 from Jan.1, 2010, while the NT$1,200 fee will be maintained for passports valid for shorter periods, such as the three-year passports for males reaching the age for compulsory military services and five-year passports for children. Noting that the lingering global economic downturn and the worldwide outbreak of influenza A (H1N1) have affected local people's interest in overseas travel, Lo said only 390,000 IC passports were issued in the first half of this year, far fewer than the preset target. 'We had originally hoped to issue at least 1.2 million e-passports this year,' Lo noted. With the IC passport service fee set to increase in the coming year, Lo said the number of applications for new passports is expected to increase in the second half of this year. Moreover, Lo said, the 1.5 million people who applied in 2000 for the first batch of 10-year passports in the old format are also expected to apply for new e-passports before the end of this year as their passports will expire soon. As to the use of the new IC passports, Lo said no glitches involving immigration processing of ROC e-passports have been reported at domestic or foreign airports over the past six months. Nevertheless, he said, his bureau has rejected many IC passport applications because the photos presented by applicants failed to conform to the specifications. 'Applicants should refrain from presenting excessively retouched photos or wearing broad-framed eyeglasses in the photos for passport applications, ' Lo suggested. Applicants should also read the relevant photograph specifications carefully before submitting their applications, he added. 