At the close of the National Cultural Congress today, Premier Lin Chuan pledged to sow the seeds of culture across the nation and put the unique culture of Taiwan's society and industries on display for the world to see.
To encourage every government agency to be an advocate for culture, the Executive Yuan convenes its board of culture every six months to guide agencies in incorporating cultural thinking and strategies into their policies, guidelines and organizational values, the premier said.
Many years have passed since the last cultural congress was held, and this year's event particularly meaningful because the government is taking into account a diverse range of public feedback rather than formulating cultural policy or public policy unilaterally. The premier thanked representatives from all corners of society for exercising their cultural civil rights and assured that their recommendations would be incorporated into the nation's cultural policies to be implemented progressively.
Looking ahead, every dollar of the government's resources must be spent wisely, the premier continued. Reminding everyone to worry less about having enough funding and more about doing a good enough job, he said that the government will do what it can to increase the culture budget in addition to the annual budget. The Ministry of Culture (MOC), for instance, had the highest budget growth under the government's annual budgets for the past two years and will again have the highest growth in the budget plan for next year. The special budget for the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program also includes MOC projects for injecting humanities and cultural concepts into urban-rural development and digital infrastructure projects.
The MOC said the last National Cultural Congress took place 15 years ago in 2002. This year, to promote cultural civil rights, the ministry in March launched a series of public forums around the country ahead of the National Cultural Congress in Taipei. This year's congress builds on President Tsai Ing-wen's culture policies with a primary focus on five policy planks and six major topics. The 19 regional forums saw vigorous discussions among citizens, industry representatives, government officials and academics, and the resolutions reached at the national event on September 2-3 will be incorporated into a cultural policy white paper and a basic cultural draft act to serve as blueprints for Taiwan's cultural policies.