Mayor

Mayor

Dr. YING-JEOU MA

Dr. Ying-Jeou Ma was elected Mayor of Taipei City in December 1998. As the centralfigure responsible for Taipei city's overall development, Dr. Ma has focused most of his efforts on improving government services and maintaining Taiwan's global competitiveness by seeking to transform Taipei into a truly "Internet City" for the 21st century.

In his first eight months in office, he oversaw the creation of an online property and land management system to facilitate the exchange of information among various branches of the city government. In addition, Ma is also working on a number of programs to increase technology awareness in Taipei and bring the information revolution to the average citizen. At the WCIT2000 inauguration ceremony in March 1999, Ma was committed to supporting a program to give every Taipei citizen a free e-mail address and three hours of free Internet Course. In other community projects, Ma has initiated much needed traffic relief systems, removed 45,000 illegal road blocks and regained 33,000 parking spaces to be monitored by computer later on and established the Family and Sexual Violence Prevention Center.

Dr. Ma's belief in the importance of information technology stems from his view that by providing governmental support to increase the level of public technological awareness, the Internet will function as a resource to be shared by all citizens, regardless of race, social class, age, or sex. On a local level, he feels that the e-mail can function as one of the most effective means for the city government to reach out to all of Taipei's citizens, and receive their reactions on important city issues.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mayor Ma has spent 18 years in the ROC national government, formerly holding the cabinet posts of Minister of Justice (1993-1996) and Minister of State (1996-1997). Prior to being sworn in as Mayor of Taipei City in December 1998, he served as Associate Professor of Law at Taiwan's prestigious National Chengchi University Law School. Dr. Ma is author of numerous books and articles including "The ROC (Taiwan)'s entry into the World Trade Organizations" in The Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs (1998).

Dr. Ma was born in 1950 in Hong Kong and raised in Taiwan. He speaks fluent Chinese mandarin and English, a little French, and a few Chinese dialects.

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