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  Chapter Three Interest Aids for Business Start-up Loan

Article 10
An unemployed middle-aged person or an unemployed elderly person who meets the following requirements and submits the relevant documents and information may apply to the financial institution for disbursement of the business start-up loan after the central competent authority approves his or her loan application.
1. He or she has been registered as the responsible person of the business with supporting facts that he or she has actually operated the said business;
2. He or she has not operated any other business at the same time;
3. He or she has participated in business start-up seminars sponsored by the government for at least 18 hours in the past three years;
4. The business has been established and registered for less than five years;
5. The number of employees of the business which he or she operates does not exceed five persons; and
6. The loan will be used only for purchasing or leasing plant, business premise, machine, equipment or used as working capital.
If the unemployed person in the preceding paragraph start a business with a person who is younger than 29 years old, the unemployed person shall submit the written business plan for the business operated actually by them jointly when applying to the financial institution for disbursement of the approved loan.
The joint entrepreneur may not be the unemployed person’s spouse, relative by blood within the third degree, spouse of the relative by blood within the second degree or relative by blood within the second degree of the unemployed person’s spouse or the spouse of the said relative.
Article 11
The interest rate for the business start-up loan shall be the two-year fixed term deposit floating rate of Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. plus 0.575% floating rate.
Article 12
For the business start-up loan stipulated in Article 10, the maximum loan amount with interest subsidization is Two Million New Taiwan Dollars (NT$2,000,000). If the business is a small-sized business that is exempted from registration as per Article 5 of the Business Registration Act and has taxation registration, the maximum loan amount with interest subsidization is Five Hundred Thousand New Taiwan Dollars (NT$500,000).
The interest on the loan for the first two years will be fully subsidized by the central competent authority.
If the borrower meets the requirements set forth in Paragraph 2 of Article 10, the central competent authority will fully subsidize the interest on the loan for the first three years. From the fourth year onwards, when the annual interest rate exceeds 1.5%, the excess interest amount will be subsidized by the central competent authority. However, when the annual interest rate is 1.5% or lower, the borrower shall pay the interest in full.
The period of interest subsidization in the preceding paragraph shall not exceed seven years.
Article 13
If the borrower has any of the following circumstances, the interest subsidy will be discontinued or no interest subsidy will be granted as of the day that the circumstance arises. If the subsidy has already been paid, the lending financial institution shall notify the borrower to repay the subsidy and subsequently return the subsidy to the central competent authority:
1. The business operated by the borrower has been suspended or closed, or the responsible person of the business has changed.
2. The borrower has failed to pay the principal and interest of the loan for six months.
In the case that the business operated by the borrower has been suspended during the interest subsidization period, if the principle and interest of the loan have been paid as required and the business resumption has been subsequently registered, the lending institution may apply to the central competent authority to continue interest subsidization from the date of business resumption until the expiration of the originally approved subsidization period.
In case of the circumstance prescribed in Subparagraph 2 of the above Paragraph 1, if the borrower has paid the overdue principal and interest of the loan in full, and resumed making payments on a regular basis, the interest subsidization may continue.
Article 14
A person may not receive the business start-up loan set forth herein if the person has received similar interest aid for business start-up loan or subsides granted by the government for the same business start-up plan.