Secretary-General Pan visits Palau National Aquaculture Center
On the morning of December 6 local time (morning of the same day Taipei time), as part of the itinerary during President Lai Ching-te’s state visits to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and the Republic of Palau, Secretary-General to the President Pan Men-an (潘孟安) visited Palau’s National Aquaculture Center to apply the finishing touches to a mural on its new building and inspect a milkfish breeding project.
After arriving, Secretary-General Pan first viewed a video on the Aquaculture Project’s achievements. He then joined Palau’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment Steven Victor in putting the finishing touches on a mural introducing sustainable development for the fishery industry, and presented stationery sets to participating schoolchildren in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
Accompanied by a group that included International Cooperation and Development Fund Secretary General Huang Yu-lin (黃玉霖), Secretary-General Pan and Minister Victor then proceeded to the National Aquaculture Center, where they inspected the sea turtle and rabbitfish broodstock areas, sea cucumber breeding project, and Coastal Fisheries Automatic Identification System, and then fed fish at the milkfish pond.
The National Aquaculture Center is operated by Palau’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment with assistance from the Taiwan Technical Mission in Palau. The Aquaculture Project was launched in 2012, and the Strengthening Coastal Fisheries Resource Management Project was incorporated this year. The mural completed on this trip graces a new building that was inaugurated in June of this year, witnessed by Palau President Surangel S. Whipps, Jr., with local artists guiding a number of elementary school students to together depict their vision of the ocean’s beauty.