In a bid to accelerate the establishment of the Financial Supervisory Board (FSB, 金監會), Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday said that draft of the board's organization bill would be submitted for legislative review no later than April.
The premier also expressed his hope that the legislature could turn the bill into law before the end of the current legislative session, scheduled for June.
The bill proposes the three bank examination agencies and the supervisory bodies for banks, securities and insurance companies be consolidated into one body.
During last legislative session, the board's makeup triggered disagreement between the DPP administration and opposition parties to further deadlock the law's legislative review and passage.
The Cabinet and DPP's legislative caucus had insisted that all of the board's nine members be nominated by the premier and approved by the president.
However, opposition parties had argued that four board members should be approved by the four major political parties -- the KMT, DPP, PFP and the TSU.
The board, designed to oversee performance of emerging financial holding companies, will constitute of nine members including one politically appointed chairman, two vice chairmen, the finance minister, central bank governor and four professionals from the private sector.
Commenting on the controversy, Minister of Finance Lee Yung-san (李庸三) yesterday told lawmakers that the ministry will soon submit a new draft to facilitate the creation of one-all encompassing supervisory agency for the finance industry.
Currently, the regulatory bodies for the banking, insurance and securities industries are under the Bureau of Monetary Affairs, the finance ministry's Insurance Department and the Securities and Futures Commission respectively. Financial examinations of banks is separated into the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of China and the Central Depository Insurance Corp (中央存保).
A bad idea
Academics, however, rejected the idea of political representation in the board's makeup during a public hearing held yesterday at the Legislative Yuan.
"The board should remain as independent and transparent as possible, transcending interests of all political parties. Moreover, the less government interference, the better," said David Hong (洪德生), vice president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台經院).
Citing a precondition of Fair Trade Commission as an example, Hong said that that half of board members' political affiliation should not be associated with any single political party.
Echoing Hong's view at the same venue, a finance professor at National Taiwan University, Lin Yun (林筠), also raised concerns over board members' four-year tenure.
"If political representatives are nominated, difficulties will arise whenever mid-term elections reshape the political landscape to discontinue their tenure," she said.
Wang Nan-hua (
"There were some legislators who expressed their concerns [over CDIC's bank examination], which more or less influenced its autonomy," Wang said at the hearing.
"Is it more or less?" DPP lawmaker Yu Jan-daw (
"Less," Wang replied, adding that "none of those political pressure was irrational."
PFP legislator Thomas Lee (
"The DPP tends to use government positions as political kickbacks to reward their supporters. Therefore, we are forced to cave in and endorse the term," Lee said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day