President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday instructed the Executive Yuan to improve the legal environment and the international visibility of the nation’s social enterprises to boost their development.
At a Democratic Progressive Party Central Executive Committee meeting, Minister Without Portfolio Audrey Tang (唐鳳) briefed the president on the development of local social enterprises and the challenges they face.
The Company Act (公司法) defines a company solely as a profit-seeking business, but it should be expanded to include social welfare and altruistic organizations, Tang said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Tsai announced three policy directions to help grow the social enterprise sector: improve the legal environment, create legal flexibility for innovative start-ups and increase social enterprise visibility.
The Cabinet last month submitted a set of draft amendments to act, some of which are essential to the development of social enterprises, as they would build a more friendly legal environment for them, Tsai said.
The president asked the Cabinet and financial authorities to give the entrepreneurship and innovation sector more leeway when reviewing applications.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Small and Medium Enterprise Administration has developed a regulatory sandbox mechanism to allow innovative start-ups to test new business models.
Improving the visibility of social enterprises is the government’s priority, with an Asia-Pacific social enterprise summit to be held in Taichung in May, Tsai said, adding that the central and local governments would work together to provide the necessary assistance to social businesses and the innovate industry.
“The biggest difference between social enterprises and other businesses is that the principal goal of social enterprises is to solve social issues,” she said.
“Social enterprises can reach to where the government cannot, so they can be the best partner of the government,” Tsai said. “The government has to help social enterprises solve management issues and give them more flexibility to practice their ideals.”
The administration has to practice its “open government” policy and ensure citizens cooperate with the private sector, she said.
“As a nation rich in technological innovation, Taiwan has the best foundation to encourage social innovation. Taiwanese like to share by nature and have flexibility in problem-solving, enabling them to export local social innovations overseas,” she said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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