The nation's venture capitalists yesterday urged the government to raise the ceiling on capital investments by financial institutions and to allow four state-run funds to invest in venture capital businesses.
Currently, local banks are restricted from injecting more than 40 percent of their capital into re-investments, including venture-capital investments, and can only take up a maximum 5 percent stake in venture-capital firms.
Paul Wang (
"A drain on sources of capital has seriously suffocated the local venture-capital industry," Wang told the 2004 Taiwan Venture Forum yesterday. The forum marked the industry's 20th anniversary of the establishment of the first venture-capital fund, in 1984.
In his opening remarks, Wang said that the venture-capital industry has made great contributions over the past 20 years, nurturing entrepreneurship in some 8,000 start-up high-tech companies through 227 funds, which have input NT$170 billion in total capital.
But he criticized the government's decision to scrap a 20 percent tax-break for venture-capital investments in 2000 as having driven private capital away from the venture capital market.
Richard Chen (
Chen said the government had gained NT$280 million in tax revenues each year since scrapping the tax-break, and that while the amount was insignificant to government coffers, it has been detrimental to the industry.
He further said that it's unreasonable for the government to prohibit venture capitalists from taking part in managing pension funds while investment-trust companies, which he considered to be similarly high-risk, are allowed to do so.
Chen, who is also vice chairman of the Taiwan Venture Capital Association, expressed the hope of holding talks with the managing committees of the four governmental funds, to outline venture capitalists' risk-control capabilities.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), a guest speaker at the forum, responded to calls for the government to allow four state-run firms to invest in venture capital businesses.
The Executive Yuan's Development Fund (
By the year 2011, the government estimates that the Development Fund will have investments in 1,500 companies, creating a total of 25,000 jobs, the president said.
Others looked to opportunities across the Strait.
Ben Chang (
Taiwanese venture capitalists are well positioned and capable of raising international funds by utilizing their China-related knowledge and financial expertise to benefit from the emerging venture-capital boom in China, Chang said.
Former vice minister of finance Yang Tze-kiang (
Currently, venture capitalists are only allowed to invest in early-stage high-tech companies.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last