Lai urges youth to stay in Nantou while addressing elder care

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson and President Lai Ching-te traveled to Nantou County today to campaign all-out for the party’s Nantou County magistrate candidate, Wen Shih-cheng. During the campaign tour, Lai emphasized that Nantou County has long faced population outflow and bottlenecks in industrial transformation. If Wen can earn the recognition and support of the Nantou local residents and successfully be elected magistrate, future governance will not only continuously deepen and implement proper care for senior citizens, but will also support the younger generation through comprehensive and thoughtful policies. By actively promoting local industrial upgrading and development and creating more quality job opportunities, young people from Nantou will be tangibly assisted in staying rooted in their hometowns, injecting a continuous stream of youthful vitality and economic momentum into the locality.

As Taiwan’s only landlocked county and with a predominantly mountainous terrain, Nantou County has long experienced limitations in transportation and industrial development. This has caused population aging and the outflow of young talent to become the county's most severe structural problems. After completing their education, many young people are often forced to seek a living in Taichung City or other metropolitan areas in pursuit of better development opportunities and salary levels, causing Nantou to face a serious generational gap. In its deployment for the Nantou County magistrate election, the DPP has particularly emphasized confronting the core pain points of local development, hoping to plan a sustainable development path for Nantou that balances social welfare and economic revitalization through close cooperation between the central and local governments.

Regarding long-term care and social welfare policies, Lai pointed out that caring for the elderly is a responsibility the government cannot shirk. Over the past few years, the central government has vigorously promoted the Long-Term Care 2.0 plan and gradually expanded its coverage and service centers, all to enable seniors to receive dignified and proper care within familiar communities. If Wen is able to take charge of the Nantou County Government, he will inevitably integrate the benevolent intentions of these central policies with grassroots local needs as closely as possible. This will not only look after the health and quality of life of seniors, but also reduce the burden on family caregivers, allowing the younger generation to strive in the workplace without worries, thereby realizing an ideal society where the elderly are cared for to the end of their lives, the able-bodied are put to productive use, and the young are nurtured to maturity.

In addition to social welfare care, Lai focused particularly on the key solution for keeping youth in their hometowns: the substantive development of local industries. He believes that relying solely on social welfare is insufficient to retain talent; only by creating competitive local employment opportunities can the problem of population outflow be fundamentally resolved. Nantou possesses rich tourism resources, unique agricultural specialties, and a profound cultural heritage. If industrial policies can be innovated and upgraded in the future—such as promoting smart agriculture, sophisticated tourism, and green technology industries—it will surely attract young people to return home to start businesses or seek employment, allowing the creativity and expertise of the youth to maximize their value on this land of Nantou.

This campaign itinerary not only demonstrates the DPP's high regard for the Nantou County magistrate election, but also highlights the ruling party's core axis in local governance: combining welfare policies with economic development. Through Lai's endorsement and policy elaboration, Wen's campaign appeals locally have become clearer and more explicit, revolving primarily around the two pillars of caring for seniors and supporting youth. The development of this election not only concerns the changes in the political landscape and the direction of local governance in Nantou County for the coming years, but is also directly related to whether this major agricultural county in central Taiwan can successfully transform and embrace new opportunities for population return and economic recovery.

(Source: Central News Agency)