The amendments to the three revised statutes governing the operations of banks, insurance companies and securities houses were enacted yesterday, paving the way for Taiwanese banks to file applications to branch into China.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) was to start accepting applications yesterday afternoon.
FSC Chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) said that it would take about two months for the FSC’s Banking Bureau to screen applications filed by local banks to invest in China and that it would take another four to six months for Chinese authorities to process the applications before granting licenses.
“Taiwanese banks will be able to formally venture into China by the end of the year at the earliest,” Chen told the legislative finance committee yesterday.
All the local state-owned banks, including Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Chang Hwa Bank (彰化銀行), Business Bank of Taiwan (台灣企銀) and Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), said they would submit applications as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, Banking Bureau Director-General Kuei Hsien-nung (桂先農) said screening and supervision of Chinese banks making inroads into Taiwan would be a “dual track” mechanism, with the FSC and the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs in charge.
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