A regulation allowing Taiwanese banks to invest in China passed preliminary review in the legislature yesterday amid a chaotic session in which pan-green lawmakers refused to recognize the result.
The legislators said the committee convener had handled proceedings unfairly.
The regulatory relaxation appears to open a door for Taiwanese banks to make inroads into China's financial market through the establishment of subsidiaries, since opening branches is not possible under Taiwanese law because there is no bilateral supervisory agreement.
Eighty four lawmakers endorsed the proposed amendment to Article 36 of the Statute Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (
After passage in yesterday's Home and Nations Committee, the amended article promoted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠) would be referred to cross-party negotiation before being introduced to the legislature for a second reading.
Lee expected the amendment to finish its third reading within the current legislative session ending in December. Yet the timetable could be delayed for four more months if the pan-green camp demands partisan negotiations before further review, she said.
The amended article allows local banks to set up branches and subsidiaries in China directly or indirectly via a third country and to invest in Chinese rivals.
In addition, the finance sector would be removed from the "prohibited items" for investment in China, and responsibility for the matter would be shifted from the Ministry of Finance to the Finance Supervisory Commission (FSC).
Banks would be required to apply for permission from the FSC before establishing a branch in China, but the FSC would have few discretionary powers. Applicants fulfilling all the relevant criteria would be automatically granted permission, Lee said.
Lee added that it was imperative to pass the amendment if the government really takes the goal of enhancing the competitiveness of Taiwan's banks seriously.
"According to China's WTO commitments, foreign banks can establish wholly foreign-owned branches in any Chinese city and provide local and foreign currency to Chinese individuals. It's time to lift [Taiwan's] restrictions," Lee said.
Taiwanese banks are only allowed to establish representative offices in China, with government officials saying that the ban on opening branches in China is due to a lack of a "memorandum of understanding" (MOU) concerning financial supervision.
Although some pan-green politicians including Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator David Huang (
"Furthermore, it would be a great risk for financial businesses to invest in China without the protection of a MOU and the public would have to shoulder the consequences," Huang said.
Meanwhile, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (
He said the amendment would not resolve the MOU problem, on the contrary, loosening restrictions would only cause greater disorder in bank management, Liu added.
The FSC said, according to current international practice, signing a formal bilateral MOU is not necessarily a matter of high politics and sovereignty.
"It can be done as long as there are communication conduits and cooperation mechanisms between the home and host countries," the commission's spokesperson Susan Chang (
Local financial institutions said they welcomed the plan.
"We do hope for opportunities to develop in China's financial market where Taiwanese banks enjoy advantages of language and culture [in competing with foreign rivals]," said Lee Chang-ken, chief strategy officer of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation's largest financial group by assets.
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS