The UK-based Economist and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) yesterday predicted that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) will win March's presidential election, further accelerating cross-strait economic integration in the coming years.
"If the KMT is united, it's likely to win," the EIU's senior economist in greater China Paul Cavey told a press conference yesterday, adding that the institute based its forecast on past electoral statistics.
Against that backdrop, the pan-blue camp's presidential victory "will lead to the opening of cross-strait direct transport links and a further deepening of Taiwan economic integration with China," the EIU's country outlook added.
Cavey said that he expects Lien and Soong, after being elected, to formulate progressive China policies to facilitate direct transport and economic links, which will give a boost to the nation's economic confidence.
Cavey, however, reiterated the EIU's rosy economic estimates for Taiwan of 5.4 percent growth this year and 4.9 percent next year, regardless of who wins the election.
The EIU appeared to also place the local banking sector's future in China while launching a Chinese-language quarterly publication -- China Hand (
According to its London-based editorial director, Daniel Franklin, the EIU covers more than 200 countries but regards Chinese markets as the No. 1 interest.
"Nowhere of all these countries is more interesting to our global audience than China and nowhere is more important to have good, intelligent analysis and understanding," Franklin told the same press conference to launch the new publication with its Taiwanese partner, the Chinese-language magazine Global Views Monthly (遠見雜誌).
The first issue of China Hand looks into the banking sector in China as well as the development of its commercial banks and the opportunity for Taiwanese banks to tap into markets there.
As a guest speaker at yest-erday's press conference, Benny Hu (
Hu also agreed that Taiwanese banks have the most opportunity to branch into Chinese markets as soon as possible and the most effective way is probably to "acquire a mainland bank there directly."
But Hu and Cavey yesterday said that restrictions imposed by Chinese and Taiwanese financial authorities on Taiwanese banks to expand into China have posed the biggest hurdle, to which there is no easy solution.
"These restrictions are already pushing Taiwanese banks into the hands of foreign banks, preventing them from consolidating cross-strait financial businesses," Cavey said.
Cavey added that the local banking sector looks at China not only as its home market, but a must-enter market.
He said that Taiwanese banks have advantages in sharing a culture and language with China.
In addition to vying for Chinese markets, Hu yesterday urged the local government to allow China-based Taiwanese businesses to list on the local stock market so as to beef up the nation's competitiveness in capital markets.
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