Taiwanese are repatriating money at an unprecedented rate since the government lowered the inheritance tax and ties with China have improved, boosting stocks, Taiwan Stock Exchange Chairman Schive Chi (薛琦) said.
Citizens brought home US$6.7 billion in the second quarter in addition to US$9.9 billion in the first quarter this year and $10.6 billion in the fourth quarter last year, Schive said, citing information from the central bank.
This has “never happened before,” he told Bloomberg Television in an interview yesterday. “You can see several very promising developments.”
The benchmark TAIEX stock index has climbed 46 percent this year, rebounding from its 46 percent loss last year. Lawmakers in January cut the inheritance and gift tax rate to 10 percent from as high as 50 percent.
Relations with China have also warmed since President Ma Ying-jeou took office in May last year.
Better cross-straits ties have made “Taiwan-listed companies very attractive for foreign investors,” Schive said.
Overseas individual investors pumped US$7.08 billion into Taiwanese stocks in the first half of the year, compared with a net outflow of US$310 million in the same period a year earlier, according to a statement from the central bank on Aug. 20.
The reduced inheritance and gift taxes are encouraging people to pour more money into the stock market “as the rich repatriate or keep their money in Taiwan,” Finance Minister Lee Sush-der (李述德) told reporters in Taipei on May 27.
Schive said in an interview earlier this month that the Taiwan Stock Exchange would seek to list some of its traded companies in Shanghai to attract more investors as ties with China improve.
Taiwan and China are poised to sign accords allowing more investments in each other’s banking, insurance and securities industries, after agreeing on a framework for cooperation on April 26 in the third round of cross-strait talks.
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