Employees of debt-ridden Chung Shing Bank (
They questioned if the Ministry of Finance and Central Deposit Insurance Corp (
A representative from Chung Shing's labor union, Athena Wu (
"The bank has become a victim of the Central Deposit's stewardship," Wu said at a public hearing in the legislature. She also voiced the union's opposition to the ministry's suggestion of assigning the Bank of Taiwan to take over Chung Shing, saying that "mergers of the two banks are not likely to work."
"The two banks will not be complementary to each other because their customer base and business scope are so similar," Wu said.
Denying the allegation, Gary Tseng (
"The government has followed due process in handling the bank's corruption issues," Tseng said.
Wu also urged Tseng and the ministry to safeguard bank employees' benefits while locating a buyer to write off the bank's bad loans.
A representative from the Bank of Taiwan's union, Tsou Kuei-jung (鄒桂蓉), said that employees are strongly opposed to the finance ministry's tack, saying the "Bank of Taiwan's performance will be dragged down if forced to take over Chung Shing."
Citing past experiences, Tsou said that the bank's capital-adequacy ratios have recently fallen from 25 percent to 16 percent.
Bank of Taiwan executive vice president Wang Kao-chin (
He said that taking over Tung-kang Credit Cooperative (
As a result, Wang said that it was difficult for him to feel optimistic about such a takeover.
Tsou urged the government to allow multinational investors to buy off Chung Shing because she said that she was informed that "the finance ministry has been secretly obstructing a European investor from having a hand in the bank's takeover for fear of injecting capital from China."
Tseng did not respond to Tsou's accusation, but said that the government hopes to close the deal and solve the bank's plight as soon as possible.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
AI-FUELED DEMAND: The company has been benefiting from the skyrocketing prices for DRAM chips amid the AI frenzy, especially its core product — DDR4 DRAM chips DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday reported that its revenue for the first quarter surged 582.91 percent to NT$49.09 billion (US$1.54 billion) from NT$7.19 billion a year earlier, as the supply crunch caused chip price spikes. Last quarter’s figure is the highest on record. On a quarterly basis, revenue jumped 63.14 percent from NT$30.09 billion, the company said. In January, Nanya Technology expected global DRAM supply scarcity to continue through the first half of 2028, thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast prices of standard DRAM chips would rise between 58 percent and 63
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