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 (
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
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