Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian said Monday that Taiwan is poised to become a "green silicon valley " and has ironed out two major projects to achieve this objective by 2008, when government spending on hi-tech development will account for at least 3 percent of the nation's total budget.
Chen made the remarks during a meeting with a group of international technology leaders, including Arthur Carty, president of Canada's National Research Council, Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, president of Japan's AIST and Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the MIT Media Lab in the United States.
The foreign technology experts are taking part in an International Technology Leaders Forum sponsored by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to mark its 30th anniversary.
Stating that innovation is an indispensable locomotive for Taiwan's industrial development, Chen said the government's "two-trillion, two-star" program and the "Challenge 2008" six-year national development plan have been worked out with the aim of promoting Taiwan's promising high- tech sectors and national construction projects.
Despite tight government finances as a result of the impact of an economic recession and a bubble economy in recent years, Chen said that the government is seeking to increase its expenditure on hi-tech research and development (R&D) and innovation by 10 percent each year, in order to make the ratio account for more than 3 precent of the nation's budget allocations by 2008.
Chen also highly praised the ITRI's performance in bolstering exchanges and cooperation with international research organizations. According to the president, the government-funded ITRI helped realize 228 cooperative ventures with foreign institutions last year, a jump from 80 in 1998.
Carty lauded Taiwan's progress in the microelectronics and information industries, and said that the challenge for a country in the 21st Century lies in cultivating high quality manpower rather than earmarking natural resources.
In the face of a dwindling birth rate and a quickly aging population in the developed countries, Carty went on, the industrialized nations have encountered a new type of problem in how to recruit well-trained and skilled immigrants.
Yoshikawa said he was greatly impressed by Taiwan's close cooperation with the international hi-tech community and he expressed support for this international cooperation that has helped alleviate the serious poverty and epidemics in the Third World as a means of preserving sustainable development on earth.
Negroponte encouraged Taiwan to build a sound and diverse social environment to nurture creation and innovation, on the grounds that a cultural melting pot is a good platform from which foreign talent can help stimulate a nation's innovation and technological development.