Minister of Economic Affairs Deng Chen-chung paid a visit to the Commerce Development Research Institute. CDRI Chairman Hsu Chung-jen, President Hsieh Lung-far, Vice President Wu Shih-hao and other senior executives welcomed him. CDRI’s development and accomplishments were presented to the Minister and officials from the MOEA commended the recent performance of CDRI. Minister Deng Chen-chung also encouraged CDRI to continue fostering industry developments with contributions in dimensions such as policies and industries.
According to Minister Deng Chen-chung, compared to the industry, which has been developed for numerous years, developments in commerce were relatively lacking in the past. In the future, development in this regard should be strengthened and the aim is to facilitate the country’s commercial service industry development through CDRI’s researches and recommendations.
Bureau of Foreign Trade Director General Yang Jen-ni praised CDRI’s recent developments “CDRI has put its unique vision into practice”, while the Director General of the Department of Commerce, MOEA Chiang Wen-je also acknowledged CDRI’s performance. He believes that Taiwan should break away from traditional thinking of the manufacturing industry to place equal emphasis on the manufacturing and service industry. He also hopes that more funding will be made available for the service industry in the future.
In light of the issue on internationalization, Chairman Hsu Chung-jen used Japan’s “Cool Japan” as an example, where investments are made jointly by the private and public sector on culture, art, entertainment, health and gourmet food. Collective strength is used to promote Japan’s culture internationally. Taiwan also has sufficient cultural soft power, albeit it is rather dispersed at the moment. It is hoped that an organization can take the initiative to integrate the resources and catapult Taiwan on to the world stage.
According to President Hsieh Lung-far, since CDRI’s humble beginnings seven years ago, the commercial service industry now constitutes 69% of the nation’s GDP, thus CDRI’s influence on economic development is extremely significant. For the lengthy road to development ahead, it is hoped that CDRI will be able to fortify its R&D prowess and continue to grow.
