Taiwan's benchmark index is likely to climb to between 7,500 points and 8,000 points this year in line with the nation's economic recovery, said Du Ying-tzyong (
Expressing an even more bullish view, Du said, "If the [global index compiler] MSCI decides to upgrade Taiwan to developed market status in its global equity indexes, an additional US$5 billion to US$20 billion of foreign capital may flow into investments in the TAIEX."
Du made the remarks yesterday at a Citibank NA event about the economic outlook for the coming year.
He also said that he expects to see state-owned banks rich in assets accelerate privatization by forging strategic alliances with cost-efficient private banks this year. He said this was an important part of the government's financial reform plans.
Commenting on the upward trend for both interest rates and foreign exchange rates, Du said interest rates were unlikely to see a 0.5 percent rise by the year's end while the New Taiwan dollar's appreciation will also be limited.
Citibank posted NT$8.26 billion in pre-tax earnings last year -- an increase of 2 percent from a year earlier -- to rank third in Taiwan, said Chan Tze-ching (
The bank's pre-tax earnings lagged behind those of Hua Nan Commercial Bank's (華南銀行) NT$11.54 billion and the International Commercial Bank of China's (中國國際商銀) NT$8.98 billion, he said.
A Chinese-language newspaper reported earlier this month that Citigroup Inc may sell its stake in Fubon Financial Holding Co (
Chan refused to comment on the report, but said that the Citigroup-Fubon partnership remains unchanged. He also said Citigroup regards Taiwan as the second-largest market in Asia not including Japan and the key to the greater China market in light of the nation's vibrant economy and its policy of accelerated market reform.
Victor Kuan (
The bank will not rule out any merger and acquisition opportunities to expand the bank's non-organic growth in financial services, he said.
According to Kuan, Citibank's consumer-banking businesses saw a record high growth of 30 percent last year with its wealth management taking up a 10 percent market share and its credit-card spending taking up a 12 percent market share.
He added that the bank will also stress the importance of the bank insurance business this year.
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