The Taipei City Government is to establish an angel investment fund of NT$2 billion (US$71.85 million) to be used over five years to foster the growth of innovative industries, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said on Wednesday last week.
Ko said that Taiwan’s industrial sector was mostly comprised of original equipment manufacturing, but such practices could not indefinitely support Taiwan’s gross national income.
The Startup@Taipei office has assisted more than 30,000 start-up inquiries, provided NT$1.98 billion in start-up funding and helped negotiate more than NT$2.5 billion in start-up loans since 2015. To go beyond this success, the city government is to establish angel investment funds directly, Ko said.
Start-up investments are to take the form of stock ownership, Ko said, adding this method demonstrates responsible politics.
The Taipei City Ordinance for Receiving, Safekeeping, and Using Industry Development Funds (台北市產業發展基金收支保管及運用自治條例) was forwarded to the Taipei City Council for deliberation earlier this year, Ko said.
Taipei Department of Economic Development Commissioner Lin Chung-chieh (林崇傑) said that current subsidies only provide a single person or organization a one-time maximum subsidy of NT$5 million.
The ordinance would allow the government to collect some profit, which could then be invested in other start-ups, Lin said, adding that the funds would target technology and biotech companies.
The funds would be directed mostly to companies in Taipei, he said, adding that the city government would sell its stock within seven to 10 years after the investment pays for itself.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not