First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the flagship banking arm of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), said yesterday that it had reopened its representative office in Yangon, Myanmar, making it the first Taiwanese bank to gain a foothold in the Southeast Asian country.
First Bank initially set up the representative office in 1998, but closed it in 2001 amid the difficult international political and financial climate.
However, with the country gearing up economically, Myanmar has shown great potential for growth, First Bank officials said.
In addition, the Southeast Asian country has become a new destination for Taiwanese investors to relocate funds, the bank said, adding that changes in Myanmar’s investment environment prompted the bank to return to the Myanmar market.
The bank secured approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission in the middle of last year and obtained permission from Myanmar’s financial authorities earlier this year to reopen the office.
First Bank officials said that as global economic attention shifts from the West to the Asia-Pacific region, the bank has refocused its business on China and Southeast Asia, and the office in Yangon is expected to extend the bank’s reach in the region.
First Bank is waiting for approval from China’s financial authorities to open a branch in Chengdu in Sichuan Province, as well as other outlets in rural Henan Province.
The bank is also looking for acquisition opportunities in Indonesia, Thailand and Laos.
Last year, First Financial posted NT$10.17 billion (US$343 million) in net profit, or NT$1.25 in earnings per share, up from NT$7.6 billion in net profit or NT$1.01 per share recorded in 2011.
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