President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of November 10 with Taiwan-born experts and scholars currently residing in the United States, who are in Taipei to attend the 23rd Modern Engineering and Technology Seminar (METS). The president pointed out that environmental protection is an important consideration in the course of economic development, and said that he is pleased that conditional approval was given for the Suhua Highway improvement project in the environmental impact assessment report released on November 9.
President Ma stated that in his address marking the second anniversary of his inauguration, he unveiled a blueprint for the nation's future in which he put forward the following six objectives: to strengthen the country through innovation, revive the country by promoting culture, save the country through environmental protection, stabilize the country by adhering to the constitution, secure the country by providing social services, and protect the country by promoting peace. Of these, he said, innovation and environmental protection are two key areas for development. President Ma explained that the amount of rainfall here has increased significantly in recent years and the average temperature in the lower elevations has risen by 1.2 degrees Celsius. Consequently, an important topic is how to address climate change and balance the needs for environmental protection and economic development. The president pointed to the highly controversial Suhua Highway project as an example. He said that the construction of a Suhua Freeway in eastern Taiwan would have a big impact on the environment. Therefore, the government has adopted a different plan, which is to improve the existing Suhua Highway. After major revisions to the project, the environmental impact assessment resulted in conditional approval. President Ma said he is encouraged by the public's move in the direction of a plan that provides for both environmental preservation and economic growth.
The president expressed his appreciation to the experts and scholars for their contributions to Taiwan's economic and technological development. He remarked that METS was founded by K. T. Li and Sun Yun-suan, former senior advisors to the president. Taiwan-born scholars and experts residing in the United States are invited back to Taiwan every two years to take part in the conference and engage in interaction with their local counterparts. The president said that over the years this interaction has been responsible for effectively boosting Taiwan's engineering technology, and for assisting in the development of Taiwan's electronics technology in the 1960s, microprocessing and materials science in the 1970s, aeronautics and telecommunications technology in the 1980s, engineering and construction in the 1990s, and most recently the integrated circuit industry and science parks. Taiwan has become a major global player in each of these fields. While many students and others from Taiwan emigrated to the United States from the 1960s through the 1980s, causing a brain drain, the number of people returning to Taiwan has gradually increased since the 1990s, which has helped to bolster the development of Taiwan's high-tech industry. Taiwan in recent years has performed spectacularly in the area of innovation, he said, pointing to Taiwan winning the largest number of awards at the iENA Nuremberg invention fair over the past two years. In addition, 87.5% of Taiwan's entries in the latest Intel International Science and Engineering Fair won prizes, he said, which makes people particularly excited about Taiwan's development prospects in technology.
President Ma commented that the government has taken a variety of measures to counter the impact of the financial tsunami. Besides targeting six major emerging industries (green energy, biotechnology, high-end agriculture, health care, tourism, and cultural & creative industries) for special support, the government has pegged four major knowledge-based industries for development, including electric vehicles, green buildings, cloud computing, and commercialization of inventions and patents. The president noted that the topics discussed in this year's METS include "renovation of modern municipalities," "digital education and e-learning," "urban transportation with clean energy," "sustainable health care," "cloud computing and applications," and "new-generation green energy technology." He said these topics correspond to government policies here and that he hopes that METS and both the local and overseas participants at the meeting will continue to maintain close interaction and cooperation.
The delegation was accompanied to the Presidential Office in the morning by Chinese Institute of Engineers President Shyue-Ching Lu, Public Construction Commission Chairman Frank Fan, and Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Jung-Chiou Hwang to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was Deputy Secretary-General to the President Liu Bao-guey.