Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) could have difficulty getting its hands on a NT$15.8 billion (US$481.3 million) loan from US investment bank Lehman Brothers given government concerns that it may involve funds from China.
"We have followed the rules in applying for the loan ... We can only wait for the government's final decision," THSRC spokesman Arthur Chiang (
THSRC, the operator of the nation's high speed rail, secured a NT$65.5 billion syndicated loan from Lehman Brothers and seven local banks, including Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) and Fuhwa Commercial Bank (復華銀行), in May.
Of the total, Lehman Brothers will provide NT$15.8 billion, with THSRC using the right to develop five major stations -- Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi and Tainan -- for 50 years as collateral for the loan.
As Lehman Brothers and IBM Corp had established a China Investment Fund with an initial capitalization of US$180 million last October, some Taiwanese officials have voiced concerns that the loan might involve Chinese funds, allowing China to control the right to develop THSRC stations, the Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday.
Chinese investments are banned in Taiwan.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has yet to make a decision on the case, the report said.
Despite the snag, operations at the high-speed rail remained normal, it added.
"We are still alive," Chiang said.
THSRC chairwoman Nita Ing (殷琪) said during a ceremony last month to announce the syndicated loan agreement that she hoped the company would break even in the third quarter.
The bullet train system posted revenues of NT$1.03 billion and NT$1.15 billion in April and May respectively. Chiang refused to reveal sales for last month, saying THSRC was only required to report the figure to the Bureau of Taiwan High Speed Rail.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS