Several bankers yesterday lauded President Chen Shui-bian's (
At a recent meeting with his top economics advisors, Chen said he hopes to reduce the number of state-run banks to six by the end of next year, while increasing the market share of three domestic banks to above 10 percent.
He also proposed halving the number of financial holding companies in 2006 while encouraging at least one domestic bank to list shares in an overseas stock market or to turn its management over to a foreign owner.
"Those will be very important milestones to achieve, but it's a question of how," Citigroup Global Markets Taiwan Ltd chairman Tu Ying-tzyong (
Tu said that the government should use market capitalization, instead of market share, to gauge the health of domestic banks. Market cap, which is derived by multiplying a com-pany's share price by its number of shares outstanding, is a quick way of putting a price tag on a company.
"The local financial market will still be overcrowded with seven financial holding companies if they are not turning a profit," Tu said.
The best approach would be to nurture at least two to three domestic financial-service companies to become regional players in the Asia-Pacific markets with a market cap of over US$20 billion, he said.
Despite the difficulties involved, four to five leading, innovative domestic banks should also be developed, while the nation's remaining financial institutions should be encouraged to transform themselves into niche banks, Tu said.
First Financial Holding Co (
However, Huang said that the government should encourage mer-gers to create synergy, rather than just halving the number of banks as a means of addressing the nation's over-banking plight.
He also expressed concern over the foreign-ownership proposal, citing a bad experience when First Financial was accused of inappropriately profiting foreign investors in its issuance of global depository receipts (GDRs) to attract foreign investors earlier this year.
"There should be concrete supporting measures to implement the government's consolidation goals," Huang said.
Peng suggested that the government come up with "carrot-and-stick" measures, such as tax breaks and branch licenses, to motivate the private sector to meet the government's goals.
The government will face great challenges in merging state-run banks, as it will be very painful for them to rationalize costs by laying off employees and shutting down redundant branches, he said.
Joseph Lyu (
Market forces will naturally edge non-performing banks out of the marketplace, allowing leading banks to compete with their regional competitors, Lyu said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS