Secretariat, Taipei City Government

Manabu Miyasaka, Vice Governor of the Tokyo, led a delegation from the Bureau of Digital Services to meet with Taipei Mayor Wan-An Chiang on September 10, 2025. During the meeting, the two parties engaged in deep discussions on topics such as the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into municipal services, digital transformation in the public sector, and collaboration in the startup industry. They reached a consensus on the need to strengthen cooperation and promote the digital transformation and startup industries of the two cities.

Mayor Chiang remarked that Taipei City and Tokyo share a close and long-standing relationship and have maintained regular interactions in recent years across various domains, such as disaster prevention and response, environmental sustainability, and challenges associated with declining birth rates. In May 2024, he led a delegation to Tokyo to participate in the SusHi Tech Tokyo Mayor’s Forum, where he held discussions on disaster preparedness with Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo. In June of 2025, he continued this dialog through an online meeting with Governor Koike and Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt, focusing on the demographic problem of declining fertility. Mayor Chiang acknowledged the valuable insights gained from these exchanges, and he further commended Vice Governor Miyasaka for his professional experience at Yahoo Japan and his current role as Chair of the Executive Committee for SusHi Tech Tokyo: Global Startup Program. Mayor Chiang also noted that Miyasaka’s leadership has considerably advanced Tokyo’s digitalization and startup development, emphasizing his hope that the present exchange would further deepen bilateral cooperation in the fields of digitalization and startups.

Vice Governor Miyasaka expressed his appreciation to Mayor Chiang for personally receiving the delegation. He noted that since he assumed the role of Vice Governor of Tokyo 6 years ago, he has actively promoted digital transformation in government departments, fully recognizing it as a shared challenge among major cities worldwide. He also commended Taipei City for its notable achievements in the digital transformation of the public sector, and he expressed particular interest in gaining a deeper understanding of Taipei City’s digital policy strategies and implementation experiences, with the intention of using them as a reference for Tokyo’s own governance.

During the exchange, Mayor Chiang shared several tangible initiatives, including the digitization of official documents, the use of digital student identification cards to implement the Fresh Milk Weekly Report program, the integration of AI into the 1999 Citizen Hotline, and the formulation of the nation’s first set of guidelines on AI use. Commissioner Shih-Lung Chao of the Department of Information Technology also introduced the development and application of the TaipeiPASS system and used the Good Pregnancy Shuttle mobile app as an example to illustrate how the city government is leveraging public–private partnerships to create citizen-friendly services. Moreover, Vice Governor Miyasaka presented examples of digital applications managed autonomously by Tokyo’s transportation and sewage departments. He also revealed Tokyo’s plan to strengthen interdepartmental collaboration in future AI deployments to overcome the previous pattern of “working in isolation.”

With respect to startup development, Vice Governor Miyasaka expressed particular interest in Taipei City’s industrial policies. Commissioner Chun-An Chen of the Department of Economic Development explained that Taipei City is advancing its startup ecosystem through a three-pronged strategy focused on capital, talent, and testing grounds. He further announced that the largest startup park in Taiwan is scheduled to open in Nangang during the first half of the next year. This initiative is expected to foster a closer and more integrated startup ecosystem between Taipei City and Tokyo.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Mayor Chiang presented Vice Governor Miyasaka, who is an enthusiast of hiking and outdoor activities, with a photography collection created by Po-Lin Chi and a Taipei Grand Trail commemorative towel. He extended a warm invitation for Miyasaka to return to Taipei City in the future to personally experience the Taipei Grand Trail and appreciate the natural beauty of Taiwan’s mountain landscapes. Vice Governor Miyasaka expressed his sincere gratitude for the gifts and conveyed his curiosity regarding the trail’s length and related information.

After the meeting, the Tokyo delegation visited the Taipei Urban Intelligence Center and proceeded to a focused discussion session at the Department of Information Technology, where Commissioner Chao personally responded to questions from the visiting delegation. These exchanges provided the delegation with a more in-depth understanding of Taipei City’s concrete achievements in digital governance in the public sector. Vice Governor Miyasaka emphasized his hope to maintain close contact with the Department of Information Technology and to continue advancing cooperation between the two cities to collectively address the challenges of the digital era.