Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) last year reached record highs in quantity and employment, continuing their steady growth trajectory, an annual white paper released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed yesterday.
The number of SMEs rose to 1.72 million last year, up 2.48 percent year-on-year, Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration Secretary-General Jia-jin Lee (李佳瑾) said at a press conference to release the white paper.
SMEs accounted for 98.87 percent of all Taiwanese businesses last year, and the figure is expected to remain similar this year, Lee said.
Photo: Lin Chin-hua, Taipei Times
About 9.19 million Taiwanese worked at SMEs last year, up 0.29 percent from the previous year, making up 79.29 percent of the nation’s total workforce, hitting a record high, Lee said.
Overall sales generated by SMEs last year grew 8.05 percent year-on-year to NT$31.1 trillion (US$988.7 billion), accounting for 51.99 percent of all business revenue, Lee said.
Domestic sales accounted for 90.27 percent of SMEs’ total sales last year, while export sales made up 9.73 percent, indicating that domestic demand remains a key growth driver for these enterprises, she said. Eighty percent of the nation’s SMEs were in the service industry last year, 44.79 percent of which were wholesalers or retailers, the report found.
SMEs in the industrial sector accounted for 19.08 percent of the total, it said.
It was the first time the paper included an SME operations survey, which showed that the most urgent needs for SMEs were funding support, including tax deductions or deferrals and financial assistance, Lee said.
Last year, 1,366 enterprises applied for tax reductions related to research and development investment, the issuance of new shares in exchange for intellectual property, increased hiring and wage increases, based on the Act for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (中小企業發展條例), Lee said.
She said 827 employees were newly hired, while 31,769 workers received pay raises.
The ministry offered credit guarantees for loans to SMEs that raised wages, with a cap of NT$35 million per borrower, Lee said.
A total of 2,787 companies applied for the loans, totaling NT$8.23 billion, with an average wage increase of about 9.6 percent benefiting 17,545 employees, she added.
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