The central banks of Singapore and China are in talks to set the city-state up as a trading hub for the yuan, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
The move would allow Chinese banks to do more business outside the mainland and also bolster Beijing’s aim to promote its currency as an international unit.
Hong Kong is the only territory outside mainland China where offshore trading of the yuan is allowed.
The report, citing sources familiar with the matter, said the People’s Bank of China had been receptive to interest from Singapore to be a market for the buying and selling of the Chinese currency.
However, it said that a decision on the outcome of the talks was not imminent.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) did not comment directly on the report when contacted by Agence-France Presse (AFP), but said the country “is well positioned to facilitate trade-linked business flows with mainland China.”
The People’s Bank of China did not respond immediately to questions faxed by AFP.
A greenlight from China would boost Singapore’s status as one of the top financial hubs in Asia alongside Hong Kong and Tokyo. The city-state is the second-largest forex trading center in Asia after Japan.
Top leaders in Beijing want to see the yuan adopted as a global reserve currency to reflect China’s growing economic and political clout.
Allowing the yuan to be used more widely overseas would also help China reduce the amount of US dollars flowing into the country, which is adding to its already world-beating foreign exchange stockpile and fanning inflation.
Last year, the MAS signed a three-year currency swap agreement with China that allows the city-state to tap up to 150 billion yuan (US$23 billion) in liquidity from its Chinese counterpart.
In addition, banks such as HSBC, Singapore’s DBS Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行) currently offer yuan banking services in Singapore.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six