Mayor Hau Lung-Bin (郝龍斌);
UCLG ASPAC President Syed Muhammad Asghar Shah Gillani;
Friends from around the world;
New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫);
Taichung City Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強);
Changhua County Magistrate Cho Po-Yuan (卓伯源);
Kaohsiung City Deputy Mayor Liou Shih-Fang (劉世芳);
Taitung County Deputy Magistrate Zhang Ji-yi (張基義);
Kinmen County Deputy Magistrate Wu You-Chin (吳友欽);
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Good afternoon!
I am really very happy to attend this gathering of the Fifth United Cities and Local Governments Asia-Pacific Congress. I also feel a little bit nostalgic because ten years ago I attended this gathering as the mayor of Taipei City. Now, ten years have passed, and I come again to see many old friends and many new friends. I understand there are 75 delegates from 30 cities in 20 different countries. I also understand that the main theme of today's conference is "Embedding design in city governance." As Mayor Hau Lung-Bin just told you, Taipei City will be the World Design Capital in 2016. So I want to share with you some of the innovative ideas we implemented when I was mayor of Taipei. One is waste disposal.
Beginning in the year 2000, we started a "Per Bag" Trash Collection program. For each citizen, if you want to dispose of your trash, you have to purchase a specially-designed bag from a drugstore or 7-ELEVEN, put your trash in the bag and wait at the curb for the trash truck to come. How do you identify the trash truck? You don't have to. When you hear the music of The Maiden's Prayer, then you know the trash truck is coming. And actually there are two containers. One is for your ordinary trash, and the other is for your kitchen waste. By doing that we are able not only to keep the city clean, but also to recycle and reduce trash by 65%. When I took office in 1998, the per capita trash created by our citizens was 1.1 kilos. But at the time I stepped down in 2006, the volume went down to 0.4 kilos. And that was really tremendous. We used to ship the trash to a landfill in a nearby mountain. At the time, each day there were 2,500 tons of trash going into that landfill. But by the time I left office, the volume went down to only 65 tons. So it was a tremendous success and the life of that landfill could be extended for another 25 years at least.
There were also interesting episodes in the process of educating our citizens how to handle the waste disposal program. Let me cite an interesting article contributed to the Washington Post of the United States in December 2007 by an American woman student who came to Taiwan to study Chinese and lived in a rented apartment with a very enthusiastic landlady, who was also a specialist in waste disposal. The landlady taught her how to dispose of her waste. She did as required because many of the things were actually mandatory. But one day the landlady came to see her and said: "Julia, you ate too much candy." But how did she know? Because judging from the waste she knew. So the American woman student decided to eat more fruit and left the skins of the orange at the top, so the landlady would feel happy. This is something that has become almost a national or citywide lifestyle for our citizens. Every person, young or old, works day and night on recycling and sorting. This is something that not only contributes to a clean city, but also saves a lot of money for the household. And this whole thing was one of the subjects exhibited in the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
There is another thing I want to share with you which was also very successful. We have a very efficient metro, as you know. Two or three years after my first term as the mayor, we decided to use a smart card called Easy Card. I am sure every one of you has been given one as a gift by the mayor. It was almost a necessity for our city residents. When I left the city mayor's post in 2006, the number of the cards was 4.7 million, but now it is 47 million. You could use this not only for metro, for buses, and for admission to a lot of institutions in Taipei. You could also use it in other cities. And now Taipei City is negotiating the possibility for using that card in Hong Kong and Singapore.
This is very good. But there is another interesting episode as well. We also designed a function of the card for school children, particularly for children in elementary schools. Every morning when they go to school, pass the door, this will transmit a message to the mobile phone of his or her mother. So the mother will know that he or she safely arrived at the school. The mothers were so happy and very excited about the function of the Easy Card. Some of them came to see me and said: "Mr. Mayor, could we also use this for our husbands? When they go to work we want to know whether they safely arrive." I said: "Come on, this is a violation of human rights."
In any case, you can see how much innovation we could have in designing such a card and applying it in the lives of many people. So I applaud Mayor Hau in many many new innovations he has implemented in the city, including the YouBike, as you know. In terms of the turnover rate, it is about 16 times each day for each YouBike. It's the highest in the world. And ever since its inception, more than 20 million users have used that bike. This has been also learned by other cities, such as Mayor Hu of Taichung City. Taipei's bike rental system is called YouBike, and the bike in Taichung will be named IBike.
Once again, as the president of this country and former mayor of Taipei, I want to let you know that you should not only spend your time in meetings. I really hope you will squeeze some time out of your very busy schedules to see the rich cultural life of the city, particularly the National Palace Museum, where you can see the art treasures of the last three thousand years. That reflects the ancient side of our country. But if you want to understand the modern side, you should go to the night market and see a variety of different pastries and food to satisfy your appetite. But whether you see the Palace Museum or the night market, I would advise you to do as much shopping as possible to help us achieve economic recovery. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much.