KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The ‘2016 Global Harbor Cities Forum’ hosted by Kaohsiung City allowed harbor cities in 25 countries to exchange the experiences of city governance, and 12 of the representatives of invited cities came from Southeast Asia, including Medan, Indonesia; Cebu, the Philippines; Rangoon, Myanmar; Maluku Province and Jakarta, Indonesia; the State of Selangor and Penang, Malaysia; and Da Nang and Haiphong, Vietnam.
The government has been actively promoting the new south-bound policy, re-defining the country’s important role in Asian development, seeking the new direction and momentum of economic development at new stage, and creating an important economic and trade strategy for future values. The Kaohsiung City Government hosted the forum to exchange with international cities the experiences of harbor city construction and development, and strive to make it the base of advancing southward, showing the strength of being the base of advancing into Southeast Asia in the forum.
Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu visited many Southeast Asian cities before hosting the forum, and this time she invited more than 10 Southeast Asian countries to attend the forum, hoping to enhance exchanges and share experiences and build Kaohsiung City into the new south-bound base in cooperation with other harbor cities.
Mayor Chen accompanied Vice Mayor Nguyen Ngoc Tuan of Da Nang and Vice Chairman Le Thanh Son of Haiphong People’s Council, Vietnam, Representative Richard R.C. Shih of Taipei and Economic Office in Vietnam, former foreign minister James C.F. Huang, who is reportedly to become the representative in Singapore, and other guests to observe and study the Vietnamese mother tongue teaching being promoted at Jhong Jheng Elementary School, listen to the students singing Vietnamese songs, and learn to make Vietnamese spring rolls together with the children, showing the efforts it has made to promote new resident language teaching and the ambition to become the base of advancing into Southeast Asia.
Striving to become the new south-bound base, the Kaohsiung City Government proposed during the forum to Jakarta, Indonesia, one of the largest cities in Southeast Asia, to re-open the Taiwan-Indonesian fishery agreement, and expressed the hope to open new air routes between the two cities, while inviting Port of Kaohsiung Taiwan International Ports Corporation to cooperate with it, expecting to have deeper exchanges with Jakarta.
