News

    On August 5, the Construction and Planning Agency, Ministry of the Interior sponsored a press conference on the Launching of the Balanced Urban-rural Development Construction Scheme. In the meet, ministers from the Central Government, including Chen Wei-zen, the Minister of Interior and Chen Bao-ji, Minister of Council of Agriculture launched the Balanced Urban-rural Development Construction Scheme together. Magistrate Lin Ming-chen of Nantou went up north to participate in the meet, hoping that the launching of this scheme can attract more young people to return to their hometown and contribute themselves in promoting regional development.

    Magistrate Lin expressed that, in the coming 4 years, the Central Government will provide about NT$440 million of financial aids to Nantou. Including the NT$161 million self-raised funds by the County Government, it will invest about NT$600 million funds on business financial aid, basic construction, job placement, public facilities, and more to develop Puli into a core city in the urban-rural development scheme. Specifically, Puli is the transportation gateway to the townships of Jenai, Yuci, Guoxing, and Hualien etc.; therefore, it has the best features for the development in tourism. In the future, it will join forces with the Central Government to promote the construction in the townships, towns, and cities in Nantou progressively.

    In the urban-rural development in Puli, it will provide about NT$18.9 million to assist the development of tourism and leisure industry, promote creative cultural industry by integrating Hakka culture with local paper manufacturing, conduct integrated marketing of paper making and creative butterfly handicrafts, and more. In the aspect of basic construction, it will invest about NT$270 million on the construction of public transportation system in Fuxin Farm and hot spring zone, about NT$25 million on the connection of Puli around-town bikeways, about NT$680 million on the landscape design and humanistic environment improvement in Xinyi Road area, the building of parking space in Hutou Mountain Scenic Area, the improvement of the neighborhood of Geographic Center Stela, the construction of the surrounding areas in Guanyin Waterfall, the activation of Damalin Ruin, the construction of new parks and more. In addition, about NT$ 9.47 million will be contributed to the community care and concern project.

    The Ministry of Interior will gather NT$11 billion from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Council of Agricultural, 13 ministries and departments, and regional government with a cross domain integrated project to invest in the towns and townships with the potentials for further development in the next 4 years, including Jhuangwei in Yilan, Zhudong in Hsinchu, Puli in Nantou, and other 17 towns and townships to create their unique environment and regional lifestyle. Minister Chen expressed that the project will last for 4 years. If the accomplishments prove to be satisfactory, it will expand its investment with the hope of a creating a beautiful blue sky for Taiwan. Constructing towns and townships, it will fulfill its rich and beautiful rural area project.