Ex-New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) Former New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), who is seeking the opposition Kuomintang's nomination as its candidate in the 2020 presidential election, returned to Taiwan on Sunday after concluding an eight-day visit to the Silicon Valley in the United States, aimed at seeking a way to boost Taiwan's economy.

Upon his arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chu said while in the U.S. tech hub, he visited 13 major enterprises with linkages to Taiwan's new economy, as well as a number of Taiwanese entrepreneurs, engineers, students, high tech professionals and compatriots in the Silicon Valley.

He said his tours and meetings there were aimed at finding a new direction to boost Taiwan's economy.

Chu said he also visited Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. At Stanford, he delivered a speech on developing Taiwan's new economy, which refers to new, high-growth industries that are on the cutting edge of technology and are the driving force of economic growth.

During the speech, he elaborated on a plan to drive Taiwan's economy by using "three engines" -- the startup economy, the cultural economy and the living economy, according to Chu.

In terms of promoting the startup economy, Chu said he hoped that the movement of talent, techniques or capital in Taiwan will be as free as in the Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, he suggested that he wanted to make good use of the essence of Chinese culture and Taiwanese economy and culture to attract more overseas industries in the education, tourism, and creative and cultural sectors to operate in Taiwan.

To build a living economy, meaning one based on lifestyles in Taiwan, Chu said that business innovations should be introduced in food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, and entertainment in order to create greater economic value.

(By Wu Jui-chi and Evelyn Kao)
Enditem/cs