Businesses held a 'Happy English Market' at the Red House in Taipei's Ximending Saturday, encouraging both customers and vendors to speak English in an effort to make Taiwan more friendly to tourists, organizers said. The one-day event is aimed to showcase government efforts to help local businesses draw foreign customers, said Wei Kuo-yen, deputy minister of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan. Thirteen store representatives were presented gold or silver awards under the commission's English Services Emblem Project, including Chung-Wide Bakery Store from Kaohsiung City, Dingtaixing from Changhua County, and Wei-I Foodstuff from Pingtung County. During the judging, a team composed of members of the commission and foreign advisers visited businesses throughout Taiwan, rating companies based on the communication abilities of employees and the multilingual accessibility of websites, signage and packaging. The project has assisted 1,565 businesses this year in building up their ability to better serve foreigners, with services such as adding their addresses and descriptions to Google Maps. Of the businesses, 1,489 received the English Services Emblem, with 83 gold awards and 1,406 silvers. 