Taipei, March 5 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian vowed Tuesday to make Taiwan an "Asian garden," an "oriental Holland" and a flower trading center, supplying world's metropolitans with fresh flowers every day.
After being briefed on a plan to open a national flower farming area in Changhua County's Tienwei, central Taiwan which boasts the island's highest concentration of flower farms, the president lauded the county as "the home of flowers" in Taiwan.
The more flowers a society consumes, the more substance its spiritual life will have, Chen told a group of flower farmers in Tienwei.
Noting that there are worries that Taiwan's agricultural products will find it hard to survive the competition brought by the country's access to the World Trade Organization, Chen said flower farming, which is well-developed in Taiwan, will prove that these worries are "baseless."
As a hub of regional air traffic, Chen went on, Taiwan has easy air links to cities around the world, which could give the island the ability to airlift its flowers around the world every day.