Tainan and the Israeli city of Ra'anana established a sister-city relationship 17 years ago. The sister-city agreement was signed by the two cities’ mayors of the time, George Chang for Tainan and Ze’ev Bielski for Ra’anana, when the latter visited Tainan in 1999. Recently, on November 13, Mayor William Lai paid a call on his counterpart during a visit to Ra’anana. The mayor he met with was none other than Mr. Bielski, giving the meeting an extra element of significance.
Ra’anana can boast considerable attainments in the realms of education, medical care, and science & technology. It attaches much value to its longstanding sister-city relationship with Tainan, and to highlight the deep friendship between the two cities, has specially installed a pointer to Tainan in the gardens outside Ra’anana City Hall.
Mayor Lai was very warmly received by Mayor Bielski. Besides sharing their experience of city governance, the two mayors also paid a visit to the municipal arts center, where they listened to an instrumental performance by three young local artistes.
A particular feature of Ra’anana’s municipal governance is the great emphasis it places on educational programs. Three-tenths of the city government’s budget is allocated to education, and with citizens firmly supporting the efforts and resources committed to this by the local administration, the city has attained outstanding results in diverse areas of education.
Tainan and Ra’anana are both advancing rapidly as hubs of high-tech industry. Tainan is focusing effort on building a smart city and developing green energy and low-carbon industries. With the central government also planning to establish a green energy technology park in Tainan, the city is set to become Taiwan’s most important stronghold of green energy R&D and its foremost cluster of green energy industries. Mayor Lai accordingly used this visit to gain understanding of Ra’anana’s related development planning, and was hopeful that this visit would open a new chapter for cooperation between the two cities.
Extending an invitation for Mayor Bielski to come to Tainan again, Mayor Lai stressed his belief that, through close interaction and exchanges with each other, both of their cities would be able to spur on their respective development to new and greater heights.