Enraged by what they called the government's disrespect for a legislative motion issued last month, opposition lawmakers yesterday demanded that half of the government-appointed board of directors at state-controlled Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行) and Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行) be replaced immediately as punishment.
The legislature's finance committee advanced a motion on Oct. 3 demanding that the controversial second stage of financial reforms be halted and that the government stop releasing, swapping or transferring its stocks in state-owned financial institutions until Vice Premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), who was commissioned to oversee the reform of the banking sector, comes to the committee meeting to defend the policies. Lawmakers have raised strong concerns that the financial reforms could end up benefiting conglomerates while depleting state coffers.
The board of directors at both Taiwan Cooperative and Farmers Bank on Tuesday approved a full share-swap deal to merge these two lenders, triggering strong dissatisfaction among lawmakers at a committee meeting yesterday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (
Speaking in a high, angry voice, People First Party Legislator Christina Liu (
"If the board makes any unreasonable proposal, these independent directors should at least put their objections on record," Liu said.
Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
Nonetheless, Liu submitted a proposal that the ministry replace half of the government-appointed directors at the two banks.
The proposal received the support of KMT Lawmaker Fei Hung-tai (費鴻泰) and was approved as a major resolution during the meeting. The ministry has the right to decide who should be replaced, Liu said.
Liu's proposal would entail four board members of Taiwan Cooperative Bank and six at Farmers Bank of China being supplanted.
Lin said that the ministry respects the resolution and will evaluate how to deal with it. He refused to elaborate.
The committee is scheduled to review the privatization plan of the state-owned Central Trust of China (
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained