Local fund managers are calling for greater deregulation to facilitate overseas expansion and boost cross-strait investment as an uncertain global economy looks set to dampen risk appetite and business this year.
The Financial Supervisory Commission can help invigorate the local bourse by raising the limit on Chinese ownership of shares in listed companies, Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association chairman Henry Lin (林弘立) told a news conference yesterday.
Individual investment by Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) is currently capped at US$100 million, while aggregate QDII investment may not exceed US$500 million.
“The local stock market can benefit from a stronger dose of capital dynamism if the financial regulator ditches the limits,” Lin said.
The commission can strengthen oversight and ease speculation concerns by requiring QDII investment to go through onshore trust funds, Lin said.
The establishment of separate trust fund accounts would give the commission a better grasp of QDII movements and help domestic asset management companies to grow, he said.
He also urged the commission to secure an agreement promptly with its Chinese counterpart to allow the sale of Taiwanese funds via Chinese banks as offshore wealth management products.
Such a pact would help expand business volume and custodian revenue for bilateral lenders and securities houses, Lin said.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese asset management companies should seek to boost their competitiveness and economic scale in a world marked by increasing globalization, Lin said.
Toward that end, local fund managers should strengthen professional know-how and operations to aid their development into a core business for their parent companies, Lin said.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the flagship subsidiary of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), set a good example last year by asking its asset management unit to run a NT$150 billion (US$4.96 billion) fund earmarked for investment in local shares, Lin said.
Lin encouraged offshore trust funds to follow suit and take advantage of local counterparts that have better knowledge of domestic firms and share price movements.
About half of Taiwanese stock analysts expect the TAIEX to consolidate this year as the European sovereign debt crisis and China’s economic slowdown weigh on sentiment, the association’s annual survey showed.
About 17 percent take a rosy view, projecting a small rally going forward, while an equal number forecasting a fall, the survey found.
Cathay Securities Investment Trust (國泰投信) president Jeff Chang (張錫) said many local shares were undervalued and could be attractive long-term investment choices.
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