Taiwan may invest at least NT$4 billion (US$114 million), or 20 percent, in a proposed agriculture bank to take charge of rural lenders burdened by bad debts, said Sam Wang (
"Past experience showed it isn't ideal when the government investment exceeds 20 percent, so it should be about 20 percent," Wang said after an agro-finance conference on Saturday. Other investors will include the credit units that lend to farmers and fishermen, he added.
After the nine-hour meeting which was attended by 160 delegates from the government and the agricultural sector, the government has yet to decide how the proposed agriculture bank will operate.
Last month, Taiwan lifted a two-month restriction on the amount local loan cooperatives can lend after about 120,000 farmers and fishermen marched to the presidential palace in the capital Taipei on Nov. 23 to protest against government efforts to clean up their credit cooperatives.
The government has proposed a cleanup of its lenders by merging or closing some of Taiwan's 52 banks and 300 rural credit cooperatives. Non-performing loans at the grassroots financial cooperatives are among the highest, totaling NT$118.3 billion, or 19 percent of their total lending, as of September.
As for commercial banks, they had NT$1.43 trillion of loans classified as non-performing or at risk of turning bad, as of September, government statistics showed. That's 10.2 percent of total lending.
Falling land values and a decline in barriers to competing imports have eroded the incomes of farmers and fishermen, making it harder to pay debts. Taiwan's economy, which shrank 2.2 percent last year, will probably grow 3.3 percent this year, the government says.
Taiwan, which joined the WTO on Jan. 1, wants to cut bad loans and encourage its best lenders to combine as it eases regulations to lure foreign investors.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last