President Chen Shui-bian (
Invitations for a tea party at 3pm at the Presidential Office were sent to banks including Morgan Stanley & Co, Goldman Sachs Group, UBS AG, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Merrill Lynch & Co, Deutsche Bank AG, the officials said, without elaborating.
At the closed-door meeting, Chen will be accompanied by the nation's top economic and financial officials to exchange views with his guests on the development of the nation's capital markets and investment environment.
Chen may also take the opportunity to reach out personally to persuade overseas investors to invest in Taiwan, according to local Chinese-language news media.
Foreign investors have been net sellers for 19 straight sessions since April 27 on concerns of a rise in US interest rates and rising oil prices, unloading a net US$3.8 billion in Taiwanese stocks, according to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The benchmark TAIEX dropped to a nine-month low of 5,482.96 on May 17 amid heavy selling by foreign investors following a statement from China that Chen must accept Chinese sovereignty or ``face destruction by playing with fire.''
In a bid to help reverse their selling, the Ministry of Finance announced on May 18 it was relaxing restrictions on foreign investments in the nation's stock market.
The changes will allow foreign-investor trading in the futures markets and give them permission to buy "call" options and sell "put" options. In addition, they would no longer need approval from the central bank's foreign exchange department for investment in the domestic stock market, the ministry said.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun ordered the measures to take effect within two months.
Apart from cross-strait tensions, topics for today's meeting may also include the possible impact of China's measures to cool its overheating economy and expected changes to Taiwan's status in Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc's indices, the Central News Agency (CNA) said.
Central Bank of China Governor Perng Fan-nan (
Bankers invited to the Presidential Office include Susan Lin (
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
TECHNOLOGICAL RIVALRY: The artificial intelligence chip competition among multiple players would likely intensify over the next two years, a Quanta official said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which makes servers and laptops on a contract basis, yesterday said its shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s GB300 chips have increased steadily since last month, should surpass those of the GB200 models this quarter. The production of GB300 servers has gone much more smoothly than that of the GB200, with shipments projected to increase sharply next month, Quanta executive vice president Mike Yang (楊麒令) said on the sidelines of a technology forum in Taipei. While orders for GB200 servers gradually decrease, the production transition between the two server models has been
ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing supplier, yesterday announced a strategic collaboration with Analog Devices Inc (ADI), coupled with the signing of a binding memorandum of understanding. Under the agreement, ASE intends to purchase 100 percent shares of Analog Devices Sdn Bhd and acquire its manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, a press release showed. The ADI Penang facility is located in the prime industrial hub of Bayan Lepas, with an area of over 680,000 square feet, it said. In addition, the two sides intend to enter into a long-term supply agreement for ASE to
RSS