The government is gathering information from across Taiwan about “smart” city projects to better integrate resources and move toward the creation of a “smart” nation, which in turn would boost the economy, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said on Thursday.
“A development gap remains between the six municipalities and other counties and cities, and it needs to be closed,” Lai told a forum in Taipei on developing “smart” cities nationwide.
For example, Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung are quickly advancing toward harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things to improve residents’ quality of life, Lai said.
However, it is difficult for rural areas to catch up, given their lack of finances and talent, he said.
With this in mind, the central government plans to review and integrate the expertise of leading municipalities in carrying out a “smart” city development initiative, in a bid to create standard models for various fields — like, “smart” transportation — and more effectively transfer them to other cities and counties, Lai said.
Regarding the goal of creating a “smart” nation, Lai said the government aims to make broadband services more accessible and 10 times faster by 2020.
The government would also strive to expand the value of the nation’s digital economy to NT$6.5 trillion (US$214.3 billion) and increase the non-cash penetration rate through mobile payment services to more than 90 percent by 2025, he said.
Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), who also attended the forum, said his ministry is developing numerous cloud platforms to encourage enhanced exchanges between the public and private sectors.
“The focus has been on the development of hardware, such as sensors, but now we are moving toward service-based initiatives,” Kung said.
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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