The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has arranged for the EVIP-G delegation to visit key institutions and significant cities throughout the country from August 10 to 24, and the delegation visited Taichung city yesterday (18). Deputy Mayor Jung-Da Linghu, on behalf of Mayor Shiow-Yen Lu, received 11 members of the mission from the European Union, Hungary, Slovakia, the United Kingdom, and France. They exchanged views on industrial economy, transportation construction, water conservancy development, tourism, and culture. The foreign guests were deeply impressed by Taichung's urban construction, affirming its inspiration and potential.

Accompanied by the heads or colleagues of the Secretariat, the Transportation Bureau, the Economic Development Bureau, the Tourism and Travel Bureau, the Culture Affairs Bureau, and the Water Resource Bureau, Deputy Mayor Linghu met with the European delegation yesterday. He introduced that Taichung is the second-largest city in Taiwan, with a population of about 2.8 million. Its six primary industries include precision machinery, hand tools, machine tools, aerospace, bicycle, and optoelectronics, all of which are global leaders in their industries. The high-quality environment has attracted many multinational enterprises, including well-known European wind power enterprises from Germany and Denmark, as well as global memory manufacturers such as Micron from the U.S.

"The Manhattan of Taiwan is Taichung!" Deputy Mayor Linghu watched the award-winning film "Taichung, The Heart of Taiwan" with representatives from various countries before the meeting. He also introduced various landmarks in Taichung that have been completed, are under construction, or are scheduled to begin construction such as the world-class Taichung Central Park, the double-pavilion co-construction Taichung Green Museumbrary built by the well-known Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima, the Shuinan Transit Center, the Taichung International Convention and Exhibition Center, Taichung Arena, and the Central Taiwan Cinema Center. There are also beautiful mountain or sea landscapes and temple culture in various districts. The Gaomei Wetland has the reputation of having the most beautiful sunset in the world. The Deputy Mayor commented with a smile that the delegation should extend their itinerary so that they could enjoy the beautiful city of Taichung more.

Miroslav Žiak, a member of the Slovakian congressman and the head of the delegation, mentioned that before meeting with the City Government today, he had visited Tunghai University, the Fazih River Remediation Project, the Central Taiwan Science Park, and other municipal constructions. He said that although it was his first time coming to Taichung, he was deeply impressed by the various developments in the city and saw a bright future in the metropolis.

"An inspiring city!" Richárd Barabás, Deputy Mayor of Budapest's 11th District, indicated that Taichung City's various constructions and street development have great potential. He got a lot of inspiration from it, and he would use them as a reference for building his city. He also shared his experience on small community development projects with our colleagues in the Taichung City Government. For example, a small community in Hungary will jointly recycle food waste to make compost to reduce waste and green the environment so that every citizen can contribute their efforts to the community. The Budapest government will also encourage residents to participate in community activities actively, such as cultural exchanges.

Deputy Mayor Linghu explained that Taichung City has developed many international events actively that invite locals to participate, such as the Taichung Jazz Festival, the Mazu International Festival, and the Taichung Shopping Festival. Three years ago, when he visited Brisbane, Australia, the Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, also commented that Taichung City is a city of festivals because of its astonishing variety of activities. Taichung City is also actively promoting social construction, so almost every district in the 29 administrative districts has its own community construction projects. Local villagers organize their cultural activities, submit plans, and then receive subsidies from the municipal government, so that cultural development can start from the local level.

Deputy Mayor Linghu further stated that Taichung City has been continuing to optimize the traffic network, such as launching the MRT Green Line in April last year. Also, they are making every effort to carry out the Blue Line and Orange Line construction. In addition, Mayor Lu attaches great importance to the "United Nations Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs). Therefore, the City Government announced Taichung City's Net Zero by 2050 Pathway this year, striving to achieve the goal of Taichung City's sustainable development of net-zero carbon emissions. The public bicycle station in Taichung City ranks first in the country for reducing carbon emissions. The City Government also plans to convert all buses in Taichung to electric buses by 2030. Of course, the Transportation Bureau is not the only one working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), other municipal bureaus are also striving to promote environmental protection policies, including cherishing water resources, waste reduction, plastic reduction, and carbon reduction. They take practical actions to implement the goals of SDG 6 water purification and sanitation, SDG 12 responsible consumption and production, and SDG 13 climate action.

The meeting atmosphere yesterday was very pleasant. Deputy Mayor Linghu, Director of the Secretariat Nai-Lun Yan, Director of the Transportation Bureau Zhao-Fu Ye, Deputy Director of the Economic Development Bureau Yi-An Lee, Deputy Director of the Tourism and Travel Bureau Yu-Zheng Chen, Deputy Director of the Culture Affairs Bureau Chun-Fu Shi, Senior Executive Officer of the Water Resource Bureau Jian-Yao Liao, Counselor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Feng-Yu Chen, CEO of Tai Chyang Creative Agency Co., Ltd., Song-Ming Gao, Deputy International Director of Tunghai University You-Lan Yuan, and others also attended and interacted actively with the foreign guests. They discussed various urban construction plans in Taichung and joint promotion of future exchanges between Taichung and European cities.