Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is to visit Japan next week, on a seven-day trip that is to take him and a city delegation to Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka and the island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea, city government spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said yesterday.
Ko and his delegation, which is to comprise six city officials and six city councilors, is to depart on Sunday for Tokyo, where they are to stay for four days to visit officials and facilities in the hope of gaining knowledge of how the metropolis is preparing to host the 2020 Olympic Games, Lin said.
Ko is to visit Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe, the Tokyo Dome and various transportation stations in the Japanese capital to learn about the city’s plans in the areas of safety maintenance, traffic and arena preparation for the upcoming international sports event.
Ko has said that he would like to borrow Tokyo’s plans as references for Taipei, which is to host the 29th Summer Universiade in 2017, Lin said. As the visit to Tokyo is to focus on the organization of the 2020 Olympics, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), a consulting adviser of the planned Taipei Universiade, and Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), the chief executive of the event, are to accompany Ko, Lin added.
During his stay in Tokyo, Ko is to also visit facilities to help him learn about the metropolis’ disaster control and prevention mechanisms, the spokesman said.
According to the city government, Ko and his delegation are to head to Yokohama on Monday, a city which is twinned with Taipei. On their one-day stay there, the group are to visit Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi, as well as ranking city officials and city councilors.
The third stop of the delegation’s Japan tour is to be Osaka.
Before returning home, the group are to visit Naoshima to study how the Japanese government developed an island with a population of less than 4,000 people into a popular tourist destination dubbed an “island of art,” the city government said.
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