7/04/2009
Department of International Affairs - Democratic Progressive Party
Chairperson Dr. Tsai Ing-Wen: Redrawing Taiwan's administrative districts into six large regions will enable regional magistrates to achieve paramount potential
At a fundraising event in Tainan, Chairperson Dr. Tsai Ing-Wen stressed that the merging of cities and counties is a core policy that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stands for. "We believe that the administrative regions need to be expanded because the other 13 administrative regions - those that were not included in the recent municipal upgrades - are so limited in size that it would be difficult to achieve economic efficiency even if magistrates possessed sufficient resources and authority. Therefore, it is our belief that the merging and upgrading of all these regions into six administrative districts would be ideal in allowing district magistrates to wield sufficient authority and resources to achieve each district's maximum growth potential. In the future, the central government will be able to directly appoint power to regional magistrates, who can then creatively utilize this new authority in creating an optimal developmental blueprint for the district. This is a core belief that the DPP has insisted on since 2000, when we became the governing party, and we believe that the merging of Tainan city and county is the best beginning," Dr. Tsai said.
She continued, "We believed that the recent merger Tainan city county would lead other cities and counties to follow in its footsteps. Regretfully, Yunlin and Chiayi cities and counties did not pass for merging this time around, and, furthermore, some cities and counties did not meet application requirements. Therefore, our target now is to give these cities and counties enough groundwork that they are able to pass for merging, thus allowing Taiwan to develop into several big administrative regions and giving all citizens in Taiwan an equal footing in national resources. "
