Association elects chairwoman
State-run Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控) chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) was elected yesterday to be the first female chairperson of the Bankers’ Association of the Republic of China (銀行公會).
Taking the association’s helm, Chang, who also doubles as the chairwoman of Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), vowed to play a bridging role between the local banking sector and the government.
She pledged to make the banking sector’s voice heard by the government while helping follow through with the government’s financial policies.
When asked if domestic banks would buy shares to help bolster the local stock market, as the government has encouraged, Chang said that banks would bottom-fish low-priced equities based on their own market evaluations.
She also stressed the importance of self-discipline in the banking sector while hoping to assist the government with its plan to build Taiwan into a regional financial hub.
Chang also expressed hope to turn around the public’s impression on domestic banks as nothing but money-making machines.
Taipower sells bonds
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) sold NT$10.5 billion (US$328 million) in bonds to fund the purchase of new generators and to build transmission lines.
The state-run utility sold NT$2.25 billion of three-year notes, NT$5.1 billion of five-year bonds and NT$3.15 billion of seven-year debt, Taipower said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
“We’ll try to sell as much as we can,” Clint Chou (周義岳), a company spokesman, said by telephone yesterday. Including these transactions, the company has sold NT$51 billion of debt since the start of the year, he said.
Bank invests in Vietnam
Industrial Bank of Taiwan (台灣工銀) plans to invest US$17.5 million in a venture in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, it said in a filing to the stock exchange yesterday.
The Taipei-based lender won approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday to take a 23.68 percent stake in the venture with a US bank.
The venture is still pending approval from the Vietnamese government, the statement said.
As of the end of July, Taiwan’s banks had set up eight branches, 12 representative offices and one subsidiary in Vietnam.
‘Rebound next year’: Chen
The economy will bottom out at some point after October before rebounding early next year, the nation’s top economic planner said on Thursday.
Chen Tian-jy (陳添枝), chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, said that judging from past economic cycles, the period from a peak to a bottoming-out is usually between 12 months and 13 months.
“This current economic cycle peaked in October 2007, so it should hit bottom after this October,” Chen said, predicting that “it will not last too long.”
Fok encourages exchange
Visiting Hong Kong-based Chinese General Chamber of Commerce chairman Fok Chun-wan (霍震寰) expressed the hope yesterday that Hong Kong and Taiwan will develop better mutual understanding and more commercial exchanges.
Fok made the appeal at a meeting with Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation.
Fok, head of Hong Kong’s Fok Ying Tung Group (霍英東集團), is heading a delegation of 20 members of Hong Kong’s business community, including BOC International Holdings (中銀國際控股) vice chairman Lam Kwong-siu (林廣兆).
Lam urged Taiwan to lift restrictions on its financial service market to boost the economy.
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