(Reported by journalistLi, Yi-hau from Military News Agency in Taipei on April 28)
To expand service to the R.O.C military servicemen and the military (veteran) dependents around the  camp, the “ Ministry of National Defense  Dazhi Shopping Center and Street ”began formal operation today with an aim to provide the military and civilian consumers a good place for buying higher quality food and groceries.  The opening ceremony in the morning was presided by Gao, Guang-Chi, Minister of National Defense, who was accompanied by  Chief of Staff, General Yen, Te-fa, Deputy  Minister of National Defense Chen, Yung-kang and General Liu, Chen-wu for ribbon cutting. The site was filled with busy and bustling atmosphere as the  chiefs and residents of the neighboring Jiantan Borough and Dazhi Borough   were invited to the ceremony. Minister Gao pointed out in his address that the “Dazhi Shopping Center” combined the multiple concepts of “fresh foods,  dinning varieties and home delivery service ”,  featuring innovation, diversity and customization in the service to not only satisfy the individual consumer needs, but also provides the procurement supplies to all the military units to lighten the burdens of  administration  work  to  allow the  servicemen to focus on their training and operation duties.  According to Minister Gao,  the “Dazhi Shopping Center”, in addition to serving the R.O.C  military servicemen,  aims to enhance the living convenience of the military and veteran dependents around the camp and providing job opportunities to prosper the  local community for realization of the good intention of the R.O. C military to “enhance the friendly ties with the neighbors”. In addition, Minister Gao  gave high recognition to the results and accomplishments of the innovative efforts in the  military servicemen welfare service work in recent years, including the double accreditation of ISO-9001 quality management  and 27001 “Information Security Management”,  contract signing with Taiwan High Speed Railway as a business user to benefit the servicemen taking  business or leave trips and their dependents, contracting over 3,000 vendors for supplying products at discounted prices, strategic alliance with  Easycard, electronized   operation of catering service, self-developed mobile shopping stations, operation and training support, recruitment and disaster relief missions.   These efforts have heightened the awareness of the welfare work among the servicemen and are highly acclaimed by the troops at all levels.Minister Gao encouraged the R.O.C servicemen welfare team to keep up with the time , improve service effects and benefit the fellow servicemen and their dependents in the spirit of “honest, enthusiasm and public interests” in order to increase the willingness of the servicemen to stay in the military and that of the young men to join the military for a continuously strengthened combat capability  of  the R.O.C military.The “Dazhi Shopping Center”is the flagship store of the new type of shopping centers of the R.O.C military. The shopping center includes  supermarkets, stationery gift shop, souvenir shop, health food section, national defense cultural and creative merchandise store,  barber shop, laundry, a lock and seal shop; and the shopping street for the outside customers is equipped with a  food court where all kinds of merchandizes and gourmets  such as cafes, bakeries, curry rice, small hot pots, Chinese cuisines, Korean cuisines, smoothies, fruit bars, etc to meet the needs of the servicemen, dependents and  neighboring communities.