2018 Top 10 Taichung Gifts Festival will be kicked off on 1st ~2nd September at Taichung Park. There are 100 stores selected in the first round to be enrolled in the final competition of top 10 gifts awards in addition to the most popular award, golden words of mouth award, special judges’ award, Flora Expo award, excellent Islamic award and hallmark of good gift etc. 7 groups of award items. Mayor Chia-lung Lin said, it’s a activity with 10 years of history and positive recognitions of the people from different territories. It can secure the product quality for the consumers and stimulate the merchants of the stores to have a healthy competition and sustainable development. As the Flora Expo to be launched by the end of the year, the City Government is trying to build Taichung city as a Taichung brand and combining the souvenirs with Flora Expo to encourage more people to buy the products with the features of Taichung.

Today, the press conference for the selection event was held at the City Municipal Building on the Taiwan Boulevard. Mayor Lin, Director general of Taichung Industrial Development and Investment Promotion Committee, Shih-yin Tsai, Director of Economic Development Bureau, Yao-ji Lu, Director of Tourism and Traveling Bureau Shen-shan Chen, Chairman of Taichung Bakery Association, Tzu-liang Chou, Chairman of Taichung Industry Story Hall Development Association, Li-shen Hsu, Chairwoman of Taichung Gift Association, Hsiao-wei Wang, Representative of judges, Chico-fu Wu etc. were there to attend the event and invited the audience to participate in the final selection. Mayor Lin has visited the local featured product exhibition booths and highly welcome by the merchants. They were all requesting to have group photos with Mayor Lin to make the atmosphere lively there.

「Good things should be shared with our good friends！」Mayor Lin said, top 10 Taichung gifts festival has been held for 10 years and continued to be scaled up. Merchants of the stores are all actively participating in the event which reflects their recognitions and the good words of mouth effect of the activity. There were 200 sets of gifts registered for competition and the first 100 candidates were screened out for the next stage of competition selected by the people in this week. Everyone is welcome to take a vote to the top preferred gifts of mind.

Mayor Lin pointed out that Taichung top 10 gifts are not only food but also the creative life accessories and boutiques with innovative cultural elements which are all very good options as the gifts. 「Brand is not only reflecting the price but also the value.」, the top 10 gifts festival is not just secure the product quality for the consumers and stimulate the merchants of the stores to have a healthy competition and sustainable development. Especially, Taichung is conducting Flora Expo this year and the City Government is trying every effort to build Taichung as a brand; by combining gifts and Flora Expo, people will be able to buy the gifts with Taichung features while visiting the Flora Expo.

The representative of judges, Professor Chiao-Fu Wu from HungKang University, he said, the first round selected candidates for Taichung top 10 gifts were all great with many good ideas embedded. However, there are always some ones losing in the competition but those merchants are encouraged to continue to upgrade themselves and creat more good products for the consumers.

The representative of IDIPC mentioned, the top 10 gift festival has prepared the top award, the most popular award, golden words of mouth award, special judges’ award and Flora Expo award for echoing to the upcoming 2018 World Flora Expo. Among the competing products, top 3 merchants will be selected based on the connection to Flora Expo, in terms of the packaging and product designs. The excellent Islamic award and the others are remained as the same as the ones of last year.

20 professional judges have identified 100 items from the registered competing products based on the criteria of local featured theme, overall design and creative aesthetics, industrial value and development potential, level of taste etc. for the next stage of final selection by the people. Later on 1st to 2nd September, the final competition of civil selection will be held at Taichung park to let the people to decide what the most featured Taichung gifts are.

The selection activity will be held during 10AM to 5PM on 1st September and 10AM to 3PM on 2nd September. There will be the exhibition booths of the first selected 100 candidates on site and the past award winners will be invited「back to the mother’s house」. In addition, the playground area will be planned to allow the adult or children visitors to enjoy and have fun.

Also, there will be event of lucky draws so all the participants on site can vote and have a lucky draw, the rewards including auto-motorbike, 50 inches of LCD television and Mario SWITCH game devices etc. For more related details, please visit the official website for「2018 Top 10 Taichung Gifts Festival」(http://www.top10gifts.com.tw/).