Financial Supervisory Commission Vice Chairperson Susan Chang (張秀蓮) yesterday flatly denied the accusations of jobbery concerning its oversight of the Rebar Group, saying that all decisions had been made by the book.
"Our supervision was undertaken in full compliance with related regulations and we did not rule in favor of Great Chinese Bills Finance Corp (力華票券) or parent Rebar Group," Chang told a press conference yesterday.
Chang also dismissed local newspaper reports that she and fellow commission officials had been probed as part of the Rebar investigation.
"We were there [the Taipei District Court] as witnesses to offer testimony regarding our monitoring of Great Chinese Bills ... not as defendants," she said.
She added that in future the commission may tighten its approval of applications to set up new financial institutions by people or groups that have poor reputations or tracking records.
A total of 13 officials -- many of them commission officials -- were summoned by the court yesterday.
Taipei District Court Presiding Judge Lee Ying-hao (
"At present, we are trying to figure out who [among government officials] should take responsibility for the case. It is still too early for us to decide who will be investigated or charged," Lee said.
The decision of granting Great Chinese Bills a grace period of several years to phase out the amount of its improper lending to affiliated firms within the Rebar and Eastern Multimedia Group (EMG, 東森媒體集團) was made in such a manner as to avoid sparking a crisis in the then-weaker business environment, she said.
Chang and Lee made their remarks after Chinese-language newspapers reported that during a hearing on Monday, Lee had asked prosecutors to launch an investigation against Chang and the commission's former banking bureau director-general, Gary Tseng (曾國烈), over their potential involvement in the Rebar case.
Reports said the commission and the bureau had readily approved financial applications by Rebar while its former chairman, Wang You-theng (王又曾), was using these financial activities to steal company money.
The commission said yesterday that improper lending made by the bill finance company, established in August 1998, was NT$2.52 billion (US$7.8 million) as of last November, down from NT$3.25 billion -- or the equivalent of its total worth -- at the end of 1999.
That level, however, was well beyond the regulatory limit of 35 percent of a firm's net worth.
Maintaining his innocence, Chang said the regulator had imposed several punitive and restrictive measures on Great Chinese Bill, including bans against an increase in improper lending and new businesses, as well as a fine of NT$6 million last December.
The financial inspection of the bill financing firm was undertaken by several authorities, including the central bank, the finance ministry and the commission, under the helm of numerous ministers, including Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南), Kong Jaw-sheng (龔照勝) and Lin Chuan (林全).
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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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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