Secretariat, Taipei City Government

November 3—Ng Sze Han, member of the Selangor State Executive Council in Malaysia, visited Taipei City Government to pay his respects to Taipei City Mayor Wan-An Chiang. The two parties exchanged views on industrial collaborations, smart cities, and the digital economy. 

Mayor Chiang welcomed Executive Councilor Ng and his entourage and noted that since the signing of three memoranda of understanding between Taipei City and Selangor in 2017 on urban transportation, entrepreneurship, and smart city industries, Selangor has sent delegations to attend the Smart City Expo & Summit numerous times. He looked forward to deepening the existing, close exchange relationship with Selangor. 

The Taipei City Government has been actively helping businesses expand their operations overseas, and the Department of Economic Development held sales expansion fairs in Thailand in July, Malaysia in August, and India in October of this year. According to Chiang, the number of investments made by Malaysian companies in Taipei City currently mean that Malaysia ranks among the top five Asian countries investing most heavily in Taipei City, making Malaysia one of Taipei City’s most crucial economic and trade partners. Taipei City looks forward to further exploring economic, trade, and industrial business opportunities with Selangor in the future.

According to Councilor Ng, Chinese Malaysians account for 22% of the Malaysian population, and due to the many similarities between Taiwan and Malaysia in terms of language and culture, increased exchange between the two parties is more than welcome. Ng further stated that every year during October, Selangor hosts the Selangor International Business Summit, the largest business event in Malaysia and perhaps even Southeast Asia; the 2023 summit, held last month, attracted 1,006 vendors. Ng extended an invitation to the municipal government and businesses of Taipei City to attend the 2024 event. 

Other topics covered during the meeting included policies, industry trends, and digital transformation; these topics were discussed with much enthusiasm. According to Ng, Selangor is currently building a big data center, whereas Taipei City has already built such a center. Commissioner Chao Shih-Lung of the Taipei City Government’s Department of Information Technology will lead a delegation to visit the data center soon to unveil the fruit of Taipei City Government’s efforts in leading Taiwan’s smart city initiative and also to release the open code of the Taipei City Dashboard. The goal is to accelerate and augment the results of the initiative through private–public collaboration and information sharing.