Gordon Chen (陳樹), who has been named chairman of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TSE), said yesterday that his priorities will be to help integrate the local capital market and push for greater internationalization of local securities markets.
The government plans to integrate the TSE, Taiwan Futures Exchange, Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp and GRETAI Securities Market into a financial-holding company by the end of the year.
"I'll do my best to carry out the coordination work and collect opinions from various sides for better solutions," Chen told a press conference yesterday.
The Cabinet announced yesterday morning that Chen, currently a deputy minister of finance, would replace Wu Nai-jen (
Exactly when Chen will take up his new post, however, has yet to be decided.
Chen said he would work toward internationalizing the securities market to boost the nation's shrinking stock turnover, and that launching an international bourse to lure foreign capital would be the key.
Chen, 52, holds a master's degree in public finance from National Chengchi University and a doctorate in business from National Taiwan University.
No a stranger to the securities sector, he served on the Ministry of Finance's securities and futures committee for 17 years. That committed is now the Securities and Futures Bureau under the Financial Supervisory Commission. He served as chairman of the committee, a councilor to the finance ministry and a section chief with the Cabinet.
A staunch Buddhist vegetarian, Chen uses the term yuanfen, or destiny, to explain every turn in the course of his career.
"However destiny plays out, I'll go there to serve the country," he said.
This is the same spirit that allowed him to weather a series of disputes in 1996, when he was stripped of his role as chairman of the securities and futures committee. His suggestion to extend stock trading hours and his involvement in the Nankang Rubber Tire Co (南港輪胎) investment case were two of the reasons he lost that job.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS