President Ma Ying-jeou on the morning of November 28 attended the Ninth National Prayer Breakfast at the Taipei International Convention Center. He said he would like to take this opportunity to tap into the power of Christian faith and pray to the Lord to bless and protect Taiwan and its people.
President Ma was accompanied to the event by Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien and Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin. In delivering remarks to the gathering, the president said he was delighted to attend the breakfast, which is held to pray for the welfare of the people, government, and nation, and to ask for world peace. He said that on behalf of the government and people of Taiwan, he would like to join with everyone in attendance to pray to the Heavenly Father above to protect and defend Taiwan.
The president noted that the theme of this prayer breakfast is "Rise Up and Shine – Building a Righteous, Merciful and Peaceful Country" and that this theme is highly significant. The president said that the heavy rains and landslides caused by Typhoon Morakot brought enormous damage and loss of life to central and southern Taiwan. He said it was fortunate that church groups became involved in the rescue and relief efforts. The President said that he would like to express his deepest appreciation on behalf of the government and people of the ROC for those who participated in this work.
President Ma remarked that while one person's prayers are useful, collective prayer is even more meaningful, and that prayer among all the people of the nation is the most useful. The president noted that the nation's TAIEX stock market index has risen from slightly over 4,000 points last year to over 7,000 points today. The economy is gradually emerging from the clouds that have shrouded it and the economic recovery is starting to proceed in a stable manner. The efforts of the nation's people and their prayers have been crucial in this turnaround. President Ma noted that the Executive Yuan's Council for Economic Planning and Development on Friday announced that the nation's composite economic indicator for October moved into the green light stage, meaning that the economy is poised to achieve healthy growth. In November of last year, the indicator began to head downward, deteriorating from the blue light stage to the yellow-blue stage. In September of this year, however, the indicator increased by eight points and in October, it improved from the blue light stage into the green light stage. The president said that this is truly an impressive achievement.
President Ma furthermore said that Taiwan has long received attention from the international community for its efforts in innovation, research, and development. The European Business School this year carried out a survey of the innovation ability of 131 nations throughout the world and scored each country. Its recently released "Innovation for Development Report 2009-2010" put Taiwan in 13th place. This was the second highest ranking for any Asian nation, with Singapore ranking the highest. Taiwan even ranked above Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, he said. Even more noteworthy is that Taiwan ranked first globally in the area of R&D development. In November, Taiwan won 26 golds, 26 silvers, and 15 bronze medals at the Nuremberg International Invention Exhibition in Germany. This was the best performance of any participating nation, and also set a record for the largest number of medals ever won by a single country, he said.
President Ma stressed that while Taiwan experiences many natural disasters and has an extremely limited amount of natural resources, it has been able to overcome these obstacles and exhibit strong development and growth. The nation has relied on the hardworking spirit of its people and education. The president said that religion has also played an important role. The spirit of participating in the real world is an important feature of religion here. The entrepreneurial spirit and volunteer movement here help with problems that the government is unable to address. The places where the power of the government cannot reach are areas where religion can shoulder the burden, he said.
President Ma said that Taiwan's Adimmune has produced a high quality vaccine against the H1N1 strain of influenza and that the people of Taiwan are now being inoculated for free. To date, five million doses of the vaccine have been produced, and this number is expected to reach 10 million by the end of the year. This effort will effectively control the outbreak of the flu here, he said. Once the situation stabilizes here and the peak of the outbreak has passed, the government plans to donate 500,000 doses of the vaccine to the World Health Organization, which will then forward the vaccines to countries in need. This represents the spirit of compassion, righteousness, and peace, he said.
President Ma furthermore said that the nation will mark the centennial anniversary of its founding in just over 400 days. This will also be a jubilee year according to the Bible, making it a doubly auspicious year in Taiwan, he said. The president said that a jubilee year in Christianity stresses two things. The first is the recovery of lost property and the second is liberation from slavery. This is precisely the government's objective in promoting six emerging industries, he said, adding that the government is seeking to generate a well-rounded investment environment, increase income and employment opportunities for the public, and forge a clean, honest, and diligent government. This conforms to the expectations of the church as well as the theme of the prayer breakfast, he said.
Lastly, the president said he will continue to embrace the attitude of "always maintaining humility and gratefulness" in an effort to lead the nation to an even better place. President Ma said that today's event has touched him deeply and that he hopes this spirit can be spread throughout the nation and the entire world.