Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Chen Yuh-chang (陳裕璋) said yesterday it would conduct a comprehensive review of suggestions to ease market access rules for financial institutions in Taiwan and China.
Chen made the statement after a closed-door meeting with heads of domestic financial holding companies, including Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), which have pressed for greater opening of the local market to Chinese peers.
“The commission will conduct a thorough review before reaching a conclusion,” Chen told reporters. “Some issues, however, involve more government agencies, such as the Mainland Affairs Council and central bank.”
Most local financial groups voiced wishes that the -commission would raise the cap on investment by Chinese lenders from the current 5 percent to 20 percent to better motivate prospective investors, Banking Bureau Director-General Kuei Hsien-nung (桂先農) said.
While not ruling out the possibility of revision, Kuei reiterated that the 5 percent limit took effect on Jan. 2 and should be given more time for its impact to be seen.
The commission denied media reports the proposed opening could apply first to unlisted banking subsidiaries of financial holding firms, since a 20 percent stake by Chinese lenders would not weaken the majority control of their parent firms.
“The policy change at issue also entails cross-ministry discussions,” Kuei said. “We will refer the suggestion to the authorities concerned.”
There is no timetable on the planned review, he said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained