Secretariat, Taipei City Government

On July 20, Mayor Ko Wen-Je and Mayor Tanaka Nobushiro of Shizuoka City, Japan, led their separate municipal teams to share their city governance experience and policy objectives through video conferencing. Mayor Ko stated that after signing of the memorandum of understanding regarding marathon events between Taipei City and Shizuoka City in 2014, the two cities began to interact closely. In November 2021, both cities signed a memorandum of understanding regarding sports exchange and collaboration to expand dimensions of interactions. Mayor Ko looked forward to further opportunities of cooperation through this video conference.

Mayor Tanaka expressed that the two cities interact heartily in sports events. In addition to marathon, Shizuoka City has its own professional soccer and volleyball teams. Mayor Tanaka hoped to add the two sports items into the list of interaction.

Then, the two mayors exchange opinions over Taipei’s digital governance and Shizuoka’s 2030 new composite program. Mayor Tanaka showed his intense interest in Taipei Urban Intelligence Center and asked Mayor Ko’s solutions with respect to protection of personal data.

Mayor Ko responded that all data in Taipei Urban Intelligence Center were deidentified before use. To protect personal data from misuse, Taipei City Government established a Data Governance Committee and applied for international certification to strengthen the safety of data applications. In addition, Deputy Commissioner Chen Ming-Hui of Department of Information Technology and Chief Secretary Yang Wei-Hsiu of Department of Environmental Protection of Taipei City shared the current status of promotion of the TaipeiPass application and 2050 Net Zero projects.

The Commissioner of Mayor’s Office for External Affairs Chou Tai-chu stated that Taiwan and Japan are in a friendly relationship and function as the main tourism market of each other. Once the border is open, the tourism activities between Taiwan and Japan will grow explosively. Commissioner Chou earnestly invited Mayor Tanaka and his municipal team to visit Taipei for further interactions.