The financial sector's future development is just as important as that of the high-tech industry, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
"The development of financial-service industries and capital markets is key to safeguarding the nation's economic security," Lin said at the seminar organized by the Chinese Securities Association (
He added that the financial-service sector, if fully developed, would help alleviate the nation's jobless rate since it is more likely to employ more workers than the high-end high-tech industries.
In response to seminar participants' call for the further relaxation of restrictions on China-bound investments, Lin said that the decision is not Taiwan's alone.
"The government has adopted very proactive policy initiatives [to allow financial-service industries to branch out into China], as long as China gives up its pre-condition, the `one China' principle," Lin said.
He urged China to put aside its political agenda, which simply ends up sacrificing both sides' economic benefits, to work together to create a "win-win" situation for both countries' economies.
Lin said the ministry will push policies to foster cross-strait financial exchange on the basis of equality and mutual benefits.
Lin also heralded the nation's progress in financial reforms, lauding the private banking sector's writing off a total of NT$600 billion in bad loans over the past two years and lowering the non-performing loan ratio to less than 5 percent by the end of last year.
As for the crowded banking sector, Lin said that his ministry is determined to facilitate an exit mechanism to force out poor-performing banks in order to ensure financial stability and market orders.
To create more commercial opportunities, Lin said the ministry is mulling plans to facilitate law revisions on bankruptcy and corporate laws in order to invite bankers' participation in the nation's buy-out and corporate restructuring efforts.
But he also encouraged the financial sector to continue to beef up its international competitiveness on its own by reinforcing the importance of corporate governance by the private sector and differentiated regulatory supervision by the government.
He said local financial and capital markets will soon incorporate international market standards.
"We hope Taiwan's financial and capital markets can soon match their counterparts in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan," he said.
Meanwhile, in an emergency press conference last night, Lin dismissed speculations that a power struggle with the China Development Financial Holding Co (
"It's still too early to tell how much influence the government can gain with its shares in the board election," Lin told reporters, "but the government hasn't ruled out the possibility of recruiting support from other shareholders to stump for an ideal candidate."
RSS