Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, yesterday said that if elected he would expand financial support and loosen regulations to help the nation’s innovative start-ups grow.
Lai at a news conference at DPP headquarters in Taipei pledged to develop a “start-up ecosystem” that would provide a better environment for young people to develop their businesses.
Among Lai’s goals were he to become president would be to create 20,000 jobs among start-ups in five years and turn Taiwan into a major “exporter” of innovative solutions in a decade, but he provided little detail as to how he planned to reach those goals.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
His only specific promise was to provide seed funding through the National Development Fund and other funding programs, which already seems to be happening.
The National Development Fund currently provides angel funding to start-ups, which are defined as companies that have operated for less than five years with paid-in or fundraising capital not exceeding NT$100 million (US$3.09 million).
Acquiring early-stage capital is the most challenging task for young entrepreneurs and “strategic investments” by the government would help smooth their way as they start their businesses, Lai said.
He pledged NT$150 billion to finance the program and said the government would devise various investment strategies to manage different risks involving new and emerging businesses.
In 2018, when Lai was in charge of the executive branch of government as premier, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pledged NT$10 billion in funding from the National Development Fund to support start-ups.
Government data showed that as of September 2020, the fund had poured approximately NT$1.63 billion into 114 start-ups.
Lai also said that his administration would loosen regulations to spur start-up development and attract global marketing executives to work in Taiwan.
His government would also encourage young Taiwanese entrepreneurs to go abroad for internships and other job opportunities to build their networks and get a better sense of global markets, he said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS