Once the government gives the green light, most local banks will be able to move into the Chinese market “within three months,” resulting in a capital outflow of up to NT$300 billion (US$8.96 billion), a banker told a cross-strait banking seminar in Taipei yesterday.
Simon Dzeng (曾垂紀), an executive vice president at Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), said that his company, along with many of its domestic peers, was ready to tap into China’s market should a memorandum of understanding be signed early next year between Taiwan and China to facilitate China-bound investments.
Mega Financial recently resubmitted its application to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) for approval to set up a liaison office in Suzhou in preparation for expanding its presence in China and serving its Taiwanese business clients there, Dzeng said.
He said Mega Financial would seek to expand its presence in China by establishing a liaison office first in Suzhou and then upgrading it into a branch office or taking a stake in Chinese banks.
To funnel cash for its China-bound investment, Mega Financial plans to liquidate its 13.4 percent stake in Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀), which cost the bank NT$6 billion in 2005.
To strengthen cross-strait financial cooperation, Dzeng urged financial institutions across the Taiwan Strait to team up with Taiwanese banks to tap into China’s investment banking business — which foreign banks used to dominate — and explore emerging business opportunities.
Daniel Wu (吳一揆), chief investment officer of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金), supported enhancing cross-strait cooperation, but said that the biggest hurdle at present was ending political hostilities between the two governments.
For example, he said, neither Taiwan nor China fully recognize each other’s currency, adding to the difficulties and cost of currency conversion.
The lack of a government-to-government currency-clearing pact forces domestic banks to seek the help of banks in Hong Kong to exchange the two currencies, which cost local banks extra transaction fees, Wu said.
FSC Vice Chairwoman Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠) also advised both countries to seek further cooperation to enhance their international competitiveness amid the global challenges that could affect their export performance.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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