A friend of mine would like to join me in the business.
The business: an eatery/restaurant/bakery/coffee shop
My friend: a chef with international experience having worked in HK, Vietnam, Malaysia for international hotel chains and restaurants
Nationality: Belgian
How should I proceed and what papers does he need or investment he needs to make?
In fact what are the rules to follow?
belgian pie -
Its your baby, do you want someone else to instill their values in it as you raise it?
Business partnerships are a very tricky deal. Its a good way for friends to become enemies.
If you go with this, consider three things:
Having said that, if this person wants to finance expansion with his/her involvement, always protect your original investment.
Just protect yourself and your business. It sounds like you have a good thing, this always attracts interest.
Good fortune to you.
Your friend will need a work permit to work in your business. To hire foreign emloyees, you need a certain amount of paid-in capital–NT$2 million the last time I checked, but that was a while ago. You can then hire him to be the general manager or something. To get a work permit as a chef, your friend would need a degree from a recognized culinary school. My understanding is that this is pretty tough.
Doing this legally takes more money and time than a small business usually finds worthwhile. And if you friend works in your store illegally and gets caught, he will be deported and fined and you will be fined > NT$100,000.
Do foreigners work illegally in small businesses and not get caught? Sure. Is there a risk? Defintely. I think the risk is higher in town like Sanxia because foreigners are more visible and the police have less to do. In Taipei, foreigners seem to get away with all kinds of stuff that doesn’t fly elsewhere.
probably, but maybe not. Perhaps they don’t really care about who’s who. Or maybe guanxi helps a little.
But anyway, first try the right way and than maybe give up … and because the place can’t grow due to lack of interested Taiwanese, that at present don’t want to work in gastronomy because of long hours and tuff work.
I’m honest when I say I can’t find anyone that wants to work here. I had several kitchen helpers who all gave up for one or another reason.
At the moment this is a one person show, i’m baking, prepping, cooking, cleaning, washing dishes. OK not entirely true, my wife works here part-time and I have a girl who’s serving and they do the cleaning and dishes partially, but anyway I do most of the work. NOT possible in the long run.
So we came up with the idea that my frined would quit his job and join me. He wanted to go somewhere else anyway, so this was a good chance for me and for him to make it a different place, a better place. Something I’d like to do for a while now but don’t have the real expertise to make it a succes.
I don’t want to give it up but if you work yourself to dead, than it’s not worth it.
Verdict; we have to find a way to get him in and legally get him to work and run the place.
As for me, no problem, can do anything for work, have my wife and ARC. (still).
if your business is already setup and running, can’t U tell the government that your business is international and he is a manager at your shop in Belgium and due to business he needs to work in this store. As long as U tell him he was working in your (Fake) Belgium chain store for more than a year he could get a work permit/ARC through that… how do U think big international firms get their ppl over here…
Ok, but they have a real company abroad, right. As I had a company 10 years ago in Belgium and not related to the restaurant business.
Although, I could become a shareholder in a Belgian company (restaurant)and this way we could figure out something.
But still, you need to show some official Belgian paperwork.
To get a work permit for your friend:
If you business is already set up for more than one year: Your restaurant last year’s income more than NT$ 10 million.
If new set up: paid in capital more than NT$ 5 million.