Premier Lai Ching-te today said dramatic changes in the global environment have underscored the imperative to update Taiwan's laws, provide greater flexibility, and make the regulatory framework more responsive.
Following a briefing by the National Development Council (NDC) on the government's deregulation strategies, the premier urged government agencies to lend full support to the NDC's work. Rather than focus on the prevention of wrongdoing as in the past, the government must shift to a new approach that strives to help the public, provide tangible benefits, remove obstacles to investment and reduce compliance costs. To build a friendly regulatory environment for the people, government agencies will examine ways of relaxing interpretive directives, administrative rules, and laws and regulations, starting first with interpretive directives.
The NDC outlined several strategies for deregulation:
1. Simplify administrative procedures.
2. The government should adopt management rather than regulatory measures for newly emerging business models not yet subject to regulatory restriction or prohibition. Allowing businesses to regulate themselves on the market will create more room for positive growth.
3. In the course of executing a law or regulation, administrative agencies that issue an interpretive directive for a specific case should consider differences in circumstance rather than apply that directive to all cases.
4. Interpretive directives that are restrictive beyond the scope authorized by law should be immediately repealed.
5. When a government agency is authorized by a law to stipulate other regulations relating to that law, the agency may manufacture an overabundance of rules. Regulations not conforming to the spirit of the law should be reconsidered or repealed.
6. Greater flexibility should be built into internal administrative rules for executing a law.