[New Taipei City News] New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-Yi attended the “2023 Meet the Mayor – Green Blueprint New Innovation Night” tonight and met with Francis Liang, Representative of the Taipei Representative Office in Singapore (TRO). During the pleasantries before the meeting, Representative Liang told Mayor Hou that in the future, he would be able to exchange with Mayor Hou regarding economic, green energy and development experiences. Mayor Hou commended Singapore’s achievements in talent cultivation.

In his address at the gala dinner, Mayor Hou mentioned that New Taipei City is well on its way in executing its 2030 vision blueprint, and shared that New Taipei City has inherent advantages in its investment environment, including its prime geographical location within an urban agglomeration of 10 million people in northern Taiwan, the convenient environment provided by the construction of public transport infrastructure such as MRT lines, the one-stop investment attraction policy that provides the most efficient assistance to enterprises, and the measures to encourage the integration of diverse ethnic groups and youth entrepreneurship. The New Taipei City Government also attaches great importance to the United Nations SDGs, emphasizing that New Taipei City should “do great things as a big metropolis,” declaring to the world that the best investment destination is New Taipei City.

Mayor Hou pointed out that youth entrepreneurship is very important, and the most frequently arranged itinerary this time in Singapore was to visit startup incubators and organizations, which helped him gain a lot of insights. He further noted that the government can do more to assist young people in the process of entrepreneurship and industry development. Whether in the direction of establishing an entrepreneurial education environment, providing business links, or improving regulations, it would be beneficial for Taiwan to learn from Singapore’s experience. Mayor Hou also encouraged young people to be “creative, innovative and bold in starting their own businesses”.

As for his personal insights on this official visit to Singapore, Mayor Hou said that it is worthwhile for Taiwan to learn from Singapore’s experience in nurturing young talents, rapid development of technology and green finance, especially in the planning of the green finance blueprint, which Taiwan should actively accelerate. However, the question of how the government can establish an investment-friendly environment to attract capital from all over the world and make trade more open and liberal is a challenge that Taiwan must face squarely. At the same time, due to climate change, sustainable development has become an important indicator for major cities and countries around the world; the associated energy issues are attracting increasing global attention, and countries are promoting energy saving and carbon reduction measures. New Taipei City has also stepped up and established the “2030 Carbon Emissions Reduction Target”, which requires the participation of everyone to protect the environment.