A US Federal Reserve decision to let Chinese banks acquire US lenders was challenged on Thursday by US Senator Bob Casey, who said it could open the way for Chinese government-run institutions to undercut US banks.
“I worry that these banks and their US subsidiaries will use their state support as a way to under-price US banks,” Casey, who is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC, 中國工商銀行) won approval from the Fed on Wednesday to buy a US lender in the biggest opening of the US banking market to Chinese companies. The Fed allowed ICBC to operate as a bank holding company, buying a controlling stake in Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia Ltd’s (東亞銀行) US unit.
The Fed also let Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行) open a federal branch in Chicago and permitted Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (中國農業銀行) to open a state-licensed branch in New York.
The decision marks the first time that regulators have allowed a Chinese bank to buy a majority stake in a US depository institution.
“China has a long and well-documented record of undercutting US companies and workers,” Casey said in a statement. Its “history of flouting international trade rules requires that any involvement in the US banking system needs close scrutiny.”
Casey said he intends to press Bernanke to explain the Fed’s decision when he testifies before the Joint Economic Committee next month.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150
RSS