Vice President Chen Chien-jen attends the joint opening ceremony and wishes to “create a land suitable for raising our next generation”

Vice President Chen Chien-jen attended the 2017 Environmental Protection Technology Exhibition, the 2017 CIEnve(The Chinese Institute of Environmental Engineering) Annual Meeting and the Asia-Pacific Children’s Health Symposium on November 8th, 2017. The Vice President gave a keynote speech on the preventive healthcare for children and shared the fruitful results which Taiwan has contributed in the medical field.

Vice President Chen mentioned that almost 25 years have passed since Taiwan and the US first signed the bilateral agreement on environmental protection technical cooperation in 1993. Also, in 2014, Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) officially launched the International Environmental Partnership (IEP). Taiwan is more than willing to share the experiences regarding environmental protection.

The opening ceremony is joined by guests of government representatives from the USEPA, Southeast Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, 200 domestic representatives from the environmental protection industry, public sector, and the academia also attended the ceremony. Speeches were given by Taiwan EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan, Jane Nishida, the Acting Assistant Administrator of US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and Robert Forden, the Deputy Director of American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).

Vice President Chen stated that almost 25 years have passed since Taiwan and the US first signed the bilateral agreement on environmental protection technical cooperation in 1993. In addition, in 2014, Taiwan EPA and USEPA jointly launched the IEP. This is a global partnership program in which the attention is drawn to the fastest growing area in the world — the Asia-Pacific area. Since the establishment of IEP, more than 60 events have been held with more than 40 countries’ participation. Through IEP, Taiwan EPA and USEPA have teamed up with more than dozens of organizations in Asia and around the world in order to jointly tackle the environmental and public hygiene challenges threatening children’s health.

Vice President Chen emphasized that environmental issues have drawn great attention globally in recent years. Aside from actively improving the domestic environment, Taiwan also hopes to contribute in solving environmental issues on a regional level and improve the environmental quality in the region. He stressed that Taiwan is more than eager to share our experiences on environmental protection with other countries. Also, Taiwan hopes to enhance the cooperation with Southeast Asian countries on the law enforcement of addressing environmental issues and assist these countries to protect the environment while developing their economy.

Vice President Chen showed his gratitude and appreciation to the participating guests and wished the conference a great success. He hoped that through the participation of environmental experts, a land suitable for raising our next generation can be created.

Jane Nishida, the Acting Assistant Administrator of US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), expressed her appreciation to Vice President Chen Chien-jen, Deputy Director Robert Forden of AIT, Taiwan EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan, and the Taiwanese government sectors for their efforts. She said, without the devotion of these people and organizations, IEP couldn’t have launched so successfully and to hold conferences we see today and these types of cooperation wouldn’t have been possible. In addition, she expressed her gratitude especially to the experts and scholars in the environmental sectors from all around the world and emphasized that for the global environment and children’s health, “we need you”, she said.

Minister Lee Ying-yuan stated that the main theme of the Environmental Protection Technology Exhibition and the CIEnvE Annual Conference this year is “environmental technology” and some successful results of partially achieving “circular economy”, “clean air”, “plastic free ocean”, and “earth caring” are presented at the exhibition and the conference. These high-tech products show the high standard of our technology in environmental protection due to the full cooperation between the government, academia, and the industrial sectors. Through this tight partnership, we hope that our talented people in the environmental engineering field can enhance their practical and technical experience and improve the research development in environmental protection and the competitiveness of this industry.

Minister Lee Ying-yuan explained that the cutting-edge environmental technologies are presented at the 2017 Environmental Protection Technology Exhibition. These include the air quality monitoring vehicle, the detection equipment for water quality sampling for dioxin and rapid screening of biological samples, and the time lapse capsule for heavy metals monitoring by using ion exchange resin. These technological inventions have ensured the air quality and protected our marine environment and farmland, thus have secured the health of our people and have driven Taiwan toward the goal of transforming into a circular economy.

The EPA emphasized that international experts and scholars from the US and Southeast Asian countries and more have been invited to participate and exchange their experiences at the exhibition and related conferences this year. Through this platform, we hope that each country can share their current technology and knowledge in the field of environmental protection, thus the breadth and depth of the knowledge and technology of the topics covered by the exhibition can be increased.

Source: http://enews.epa.gov.tw/enews/fact_Newsdetail.asp?InputTime=1061108192454