Britain's finance minister Rishi Sunak has pledged more support for startups and introduced visa reforms to attract tech talent while promising to unlock billions of pounds in pension fund capital for innovative companies. The government's startup support plans include Future Fund: Breakthrough, a £375 million (about $523 million) extension to the Future Fund launched last year, which will invest in innovative companies in life sciences and technology. There will also be a £520 million plan called Help To Grow that invests in training and productivity-enhancing software for small businesses. Sunak also said the government would seek to allow pension funds to make higher-risk investments by reviewing the government limits on fund fees—potentially unlocking a new source of capital for startups and venture funds. There are also plans to make it easier for tech companies to attract more talent from abroad by introducing an "elite points-based" visa by March 2022 that will fast-track those with a job offer.
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi announced the launch of the 10 billion Indian rupees worth "India Entrepreneurship Seed Fund" to help start-ups and support aspiring entrepreneurs to put their ideas into practice. Prime Minister Modi said that the government is taking important measures to ensure that Indian startups do not face any shortage of funds. The Indian federal government will appoint a professional fund manager to manage a 1.2 billion rupees seed fund. Under India’s Next Generation Incubation Program (NGIS), this seed fund will invest in 300 start-up companies from second-tier and third-tier cities, responding to Indian Prime Minister Modi’s call for “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” to support young entrepreneurs. NGIS will provide 600 million rupees in seed funds for 300 start-up companies. In addition, it will raise 600 million rupees matching funds from the market or private entities to provide follow-on investments for 150 start-up companies. The fund will invest in emerging companies in the long term, focusing on Indian software development and information technology (IT) companies that could realize rapid development and high-end products or solutions. In India's 2021 federal budget, Innovation and R&D is one of the six important pillars of the annual budget. The Indian government has also proposed to strengthen the Indian public research and innovation ecosystem.
On March 5, 2021, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang gave clear instructions in his government work report that the systemic tax reduction policy continues to implement in 2021, and the implementation period of some phased policies such as small-scale taxpayers' value-added tax concessions is extended, and the value-added tax threshold for small-scale taxpayers was raised from monthly sales of 100,000 yuan to 150,000 yuan. On the part of small and micro enterprises and individual household businesses whose annual taxable income are less than 1 million yuan, on the basis of the current preferential policies, income tax will be halved. In addition, Premier Li Keqiang also proposed in the report to continue the implementation of the 75% deduction policy for enterprise R&D expenses, increase the additional deduction ratio for manufacturing enterprises to 100%, and use tax incentives to encourage enterprises to increase R&D investment.
The South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups stated that the budget for supporting entrepreneurship has been raised to 1.5 trillion won (US$1.4 billion) in 2021, an increase of US$60.6 million from last year. A total of 32 ministries and municipal governments will carry out 194 projects with the funds. Specifically, 141.3 billion won (US$129.3 million) will be set aside for 29 projects targeted to support young startup founders under the age of 40.
On December 23, 2020, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) proposed draft guidelines of business cooperation with start-ups to promote innovation and ensure open competition. The authorities are seeking public opinion.