Business rating app Yelp has opened a portal in Taiwan.

Yelp allows shoppers and customers of other businesses to share their opinions and experiences in a similar way TripAdvisor allows crowd ratings of restaurants, hotels and holiday destinations.

From this week, people throughout Taiwan can create accounts on Yelp.com.tw  and use the free iPhone and Android applications as well as its free suite of business owner tools: Yelp for Business Owners.

“From shopping at street markets for sweet and savory snacks, to getting lost on the many hiking trails, Taiwan is an energetic tropical island full of surprises,” says Miriam Warren, VP of new markets. “Similar to Yelp’s home in Silicon Valley, a bevy of influential technology firms make their home in Taiwan. It’s definitely a natural fit.”

Yelp is already in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan and The Taiwan debut continues an Asia growth ambition. The company will initially appoint a community manager in Taipei, whose role will be to build a local community of Yelpers in Taipei.

Yelp is available to everyone in Taiwan with access to the Internet, whether that be via their desktop, smartphone or tablet, and they can do so in any one of the 16 languages that Yelp currently supports, including traditional Chinese.

IMAGES: To learn more and see pictures of Yelp.com.tw and our iPhone and Android applications, visit our Yelp Official Blog.