'Instant Help Booths' help SMEs survive the economic crisis

Text provided by Taichung Industrial Association (idipc)
Translated by Ann Lee

The Taichung City SMEA service center is at your service any time of the day. (Photographer: Micky Lu)
Taichung City Mayor Jason Hu sees himself as a "store manager" as he oversees the operations of the city like he would his own business.

In light of the current economic crisis, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has established three "support policies" to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in surviving through hard times. The government has planned various strategies that will support banks financially, in turn alllowing banks to support businesses. This means companies will be able to help employees keep their jobs, for the main purpose of strengthening business operations throughout all of Taiwan. The government will gather resources from all cities and counties around Taiwan, and train teams of professionals to assist citizens with "instant needs". These assistance booths, or information desks, will contact SMEs to find out if they need assistance in solving financial issues.

When summarizing the main problems and issues that most SMEs are currently facing, a list includes a decrease in the number of purchase orders and sales activities, a lack of capital and reduction of employees. In order to show to the public that the government is helping them through this crisis in the most direct method, the MOEA has created "Instant Help Booths" and an "Instant Help Hotline" to take or make calls and email companies that might suffer from these problems, in order to appoint designated banks and their staffs to provide services that can help companies with their financial troubles.

The MOEA's Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (SMEA) has come up with "Mutual Assistance and Collaboration" guidelines, as stated:
1. Postponing the date for handling procedures of rejected checks: The "Checks and Saving Accounts Credibility Checks" Guidelines states that all corporations suffering from financial issues due to sending rejecting checks to banks need to register and apply for an extensions on their checks 10 days prior to the cashing date of these checks. Bank officials must first understand the operational condition of the enterprise to verify whether they are eligible to apply for such extensions. The designated bank these checks will be sent to are Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and to The Taiwan Payments Clearing System Development Foundation (The Taiwan Clearing House). There, the government will assist in giving a maximum of six months extension to corporations rejected by banks. However, only corporations with a normal bank credibility rating are eligible to negotiate for getting rejected checks back, and continue with procedures for clearing their debts.

2. Corporations' bank loans and debts can be negotiated: For enterprises operating under normal circumstance and paying their taxes every year, if they need financial help or funds to keep their company running, they must apply to extend the period for paying back their base loans before March, 2009. Corporations wishing to apply for such a loan must write up an application, and must agree to a maximum six-month extension. If after six months, money-loaning banks are still unable to loan the money to the business (this includes continuing loans, giving extensions on the pay-back date, or negotiating fund clearing terms), then the MOEA will be responsible for handing evaluation procedures, and lend the funds to corporations with the largest amount of debt on their list. At this time, the MOEA will hold a negotiating conference with the designated bank, and vote on the maximum amount of funding to be loaned to the corporation. The amount loaned by the bank to the corporation needs to be agreed to more than 50% of the bank officials.

The MOEA's instant problem-solving office will assist SMEs with their applications. At the same time, the Industrial Development Bureau will help enterprises in other situations and of other sizes with their application processes. Procedures and application forms can also be downloaded from SMEA's official website, http://www.moeasmea.gov.tw/mp.asp?mp=2