President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of December 23 with the participants in the Training Program for High-Level Executives from Mongolia. In addition to welcoming the group to Taiwan, the president also called for continued strengthening of bilateral friendship, cooperation, and interaction.
In remarks, President Ma stated that two years ago when then minister of our Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) visited Mongolia, the Civil Service Council of Mongolia expressed its hope to send officials to Taiwan for training, and efforts by both sides have realized this goal. He noted that the delegation included secretaries-general of local governments and assembly speakers, and commented that this was the highest-level government delegation from Mongolia to visit the ROC in over a decade. Noting that his visitors had come to Taiwan even though their assemblies were to convene soon, the president expressed admiration for their commitment to training.
As for bilateral cooperation and interaction, President Ma recalled that over 20 years ago when he was working at the Executive Yuan's Mainland Affairs Council, the MTAC had presented a briefing on Mongolia and called for more bilateral cooperation. After that meeting, Taiwan began donating rice and other goods to Mongolia, and assisted in the printing of elementary school textbooks in classical Mongolian. The president stated that when he was Taipei City mayor (1998-2006), he actively promoted bilateral ties in the area of health care. Apart from dispatching health care and public health workers from Taipei City to remote areas of Mongolia to provide free clinics, arrangements were also made for medical workers from Mongolia to come to Taiwan to observe health care techniques and better understand Taiwan's public health system. He went on to say that since being sworn in as president he has met on a number of occasions with Mongolian judges and prosecutors who were in Taiwan for judicial training programs. All of them are very outstanding, the president said.
President Ma further stated that in February of this year Taiwan and Mongolia signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation within the Fields of Renewable Energy and Energy Management, with cooperation focusing on solar PV, wind power, energy audits, and energy efficiency management. The initiative, he said, will boost power supply in Mongolia and create new business opportunities for Taiwan's renewable energies industry, thereby creating a win-win situation.
As for non-government ties, President Ma noted, the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, World Vision Taiwan, and the Rotary International Taiwan provide assistance to underprivileged children in Mongolia, and the public here has long taken part in projects to care for children around the world. He cited statistics showing that ROC nationals are already providing financial sponsorship to 350,000 underprivileged children at home and overseas, 250,000 of whom reside abroad. The president remarked that he and the First Lady are sponsoring children and he is deeply aware how helpful these programs are, so he hopes that the two sides can continue to enhance cooperation and interaction.
Because some of the visitors were the speakers of local assemblies in Mongolia, President Ma also briefed his visitors on Taiwan's experience in democratization. He said that self-governance at the local level is an important foundation of democracy, and that the development of local self-governance has been crucial in the course of Taiwan's democratization.
As for Taiwan's efforts to boost administrative efficiency, President Ma stated that Taiwan has adopted a variety of administrative reform measures over the past couple of decades, including reorganization of the government, steps to improve efficiency, and measures to streamline the bureaucracy. This, he said, has helped strengthen governance at both the national and local levels. He specifically pointed to the recent restructuring of the Executive Yuan, which reduced the number of central government agencies from 37 to 29. In addition, the merging and upgrading of several cities and counties has reduced the number of local governments in Taiwan from 25 to 22, while the number of governments directly under the jurisdiction of the central government has increased. The president said that information on this process would be shared with the members of the delegation.
President Ma also noted that the delegation would visit the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station and the Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park, so he briefed them on Taiwan's successful experience in farming grouper and other fish, and expressed hope that the visitors would gain a better understanding of Taiwan's agricultural and fishing industries.
The delegation was led by Bavuu Tuvshinbayar, the head of the group that is taking part in the training program.