At the Cabinet's weekly meeting today, Premier Jiang Yi-huah reiterated the government's commitment to helping creativity businesses through a suite of financial initiatives.
He made the pledge after being briefed by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on the progress of a multifaceted plan to encourage the innovation economy. Through educational training, special funding, an assistance platform and other complementary measures, the FSC is boosting the creativity sector and making it easier for innovative companies to access the funds they need to grow.
Jiang instructed the commission to continue cooperating with relevant agencies to promote the plan, regularly review its implementation, and adopt reformative measures in a timely fashion to help spur the development of creativity industries.
The plan has already shown early promise since its launch on January 1, 2014, according to the FSC. As of August, the Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Guarantee Fund of Taiwan had guaranteed over NT$14 billion (US$466.7 million) in loans, while domestic banks had loaned creativity businesses NT$235 billion (US$7.8 billion), up NT$53.3 billion (US$1.8 billion) from December 2013 and already reaching the FSC's full-year target.
The Go Incubation Board for Startup and Acceleration Firms (GISA), which was launched at the GreTai Securities Market this January to raise capital for microenterprises, has also delivered impressive results. A higher-than-expected number of creativity companies are now listed on the board, and six of these startups have completed raising NT$21 million (US$700,000) in capital.
Moreover, the number of bank loans to creativity microenterprises surged 1,237 percent from 244 in January to 3,262 as of the end of August. The value of these loans also jumped 109 percent from NT$8.90 billion (US$297 million) to NT$18.62 billion (US$621 million) during that period.
"The FSC's financing plan has clearly brought about a positive effect on the quality and quantity of creativity companies," said the premier.
In the past, many micro-entrepreneurs have been forced to abandon their creative ideas or dreams due to financing difficulty, Jiang said. Hence, the FSC must continue encouraging more domestic banks to provide loans to businesses that have less than NT$1 million (US$33,333) capital or earn below NT$10 million (US$333,333) in annual revenue.
The FSC reported other achievements under the plan so far:
- Education and training: A total of 52 courses, forums or industrial analysis classes were organized for 2,449 participants.
- Funding support: The FSC coordinated with the Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Guarantee Fund of Taiwan to raise the maximum guarantee provided on the loans to 90 percent from 80 percent.
- GISA start-up board: Of the 84 companies that applied, 32 have finished raising capital totaling NT$156 million (US$5.2 million).
- Assistance platform: Two fund-raising events were organized to match 16 innovative businesses with investors.
The FSC also noted other complementary measures, such as introducing the valuation of intangible assets (11 industries such as filmmaking have completed this process), and encouraging banks to double the amount of loans to creativity businesses from NT$180 billion (US$6 billion) in early 2014 to NT$360 billion (US$12 billion) by the end of 2016.