Taiwan's Minister of Finance Yen Ching-chang (
"My colleagues are now busy working on enforcement rules for the new statute that is bound to bring about radical changes in our financial landscape," Yen said during a luncheon for foreign correspondents based in Taipei.
The holding company law is due to become effective on Nov. 1 to provide legal grounds for such establishments.
Yen said the banking sector has to consolidate to improve sharply-eroded profit margins and increase competitiveness.
Taiwan's financial market is overcrowded with a total of 53 domestic banks and 360 grassroot institutions against a population of 23 million people.
The recent management changes at Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) and Central Trust of China (中央信託局) reflected the government's resolve to complete their consolidation with Land Bank of Taiwan (台灣土地銀行) to become a financial holding company, he said.
Yen said foreign investors would be given 100 percent national treatment for their investment in local banking business based on the merger law and the holdings company law.
Also, he said 10 state-controlled banks would complete the takeover of 36 problematic grassroots financial institutions by mid-September as a part of ongoing financial reform, he said.
This activity started last week with the transfer of a farmers' credit cooperative to United World Chinese Commercial Bank (
The takeover of 36 troubled grassroots financial institutions, which account for just a combined 1 percent of the domestic banking market, was meant to send a message that the government is serious about reducing non-performing loans in the banking sector, he said.
In terms of improving banks' asset quality, the government is establishing a NT$140 billion (US$4.05 billion) financial restructuring fund in the four years for the disposal of bad loans, he said.
The establishment of asset management companies was encouraged to help such disposals, with a good portion from the property sector, he added.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li