Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) yesterday visited Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) at the Executive Yuan to seek his support for 18 major proposals for the city’s development.
“Premier Wu was by and large supportive of our plans. We hope Wu, as a former mayor of the city, empathizes with the people of southern Taiwan,” Chen told reporters.
After the meeting, Wu instructed Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森) to help coordinate central government agencies to deal with any problems the city government has had or might encounter in implementing the projects, Chen said.
On the long-term wish of city residents that the Kaohsiung City Government obtain jurisdiction over Kaohsiung Harbor — currently supervised by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau — Chen said Wu rejected the plea.
Wu was an advocate of the proposal before becoming premier in September.
“Although it is unlikely we will see the integration of the city and harbor administrations, Wu recognized the importance of cooperation between the two,” Chen said.
Chen quoted Wu as saying that the bureau would work with the city government to advance its plan to build a 100 hectare park for yacht production and a proposal to develop the city into a destination for international cruise lines.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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