Taiwanese banks saw net profits from their Chinese operations climb 88 percent last year to NT$5.2 billion (US$164 million) from the previous year, indicating strong funding demand from Taiwan-based companies operating in China, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
A total of 13 Taiwanese banks had 18 branches, eight sub-branches and two subsidiaries in China as of the end of last month, the commission said in a statement.
“Most Taiwanese banks are still looking at Shanghai, Suzhou and Guangdong as their major development regions in China,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Jean Chiu (邱淑貞) told a media briefing.
The branches and sub-branches had an outstanding loan balance of NT$106.4 billion, savings business of NT$24.9 billion and a net income of NT$2.9 billion last year, an increase of 113 percent from the previous year, the statement said.
Taiwanese banks’ subsidiaries had an outstanding loan balance of NT$160.6 billion last year, with their savings business standing at NT$219.7 billion and profits of NT$2.3 billion, up 63 percent from the previous year, the statement said.
In related news, the nation’s 16 listed financial holding companies had all submitted their Asian expansion plans for the next three to five years to the commission at the end of last month as requested, the commission said.
In line with FSC Chairman William Tseng’s (曾銘宗) proposal, the nation’s major financial institutions plan to accelerate their expansion in Asia.
“I have not gone through the plans yet, but the commission will help competitive players to successfully expand in Asia,” Tseng said by telephone yesterday.
Tseng said that the commission was still targeting helping three to five Taiwanese financial services providers expand into regional players over the next three to five years.
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