Insideview
Family Friendly Alliance Summit
The ECCT hosted the 2023 Family Friendly Alliance Summit. Read the full event report.
It was the inaugural event hosted by the chamber’s Family Friendly Alliance (FFA), which was established as a platform for collaboration among various stakeholders to address the challenges resulting from Taiwan’s low birth-rate, ageing population and talent shortage. The event, themed “The ‘S’ in ESG - Sustainable Population, Sustainable Economy - How employers can make an impact and serve as role models”, brought together experts from government and the private sector to examine the major demographic trends and related challenges facing Taiwan and seek possible solutions to address them. By sharing best practices, especially from Europe, the FFA aims to promote cooperation between the government, corporations and NGOs to create a family friendly environment in Taiwan.
The summit began with opening remarks by ECCT Chairman Giuseppe Izzo and Filip Grzegorzewski, Head of the European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan. This was followed by presentations in two sessions by government officials and industry experts on topics including demographic challenges, advancing family-friendly policies to support sustainable population development, a sustainable economy, achieving work-life balance and labour law reform proposals for a family friendly environment, among others.
The presentations were followed by a panel discussion moderated by Fran Milnes, Country President of Novartis Taiwan. The final panel discussion featured all of the ECCT member company speakers as well as Sherman Yu, Vice President and General Manager of GSK Taiwan. The event was concluded with a ceremony where representatives from 12 ECCT member companies pledged their commitment to create family friendly workplaces in their organisations.
This summit comes at a crucial time for Taiwan, which experienced its third consecutive annual population decline in 2022 as the country saw both its lowest number of births and highest number of deaths on record and is on track to become a super-aged society by 2025, with one in five residents over the age of 65.
