Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc is seeking to expand its workforce in Taiwan as it pursues business from companies benefiting from increasing cross-strait trade.
“We need to be geographically close to our customers,” Tetsuo Tani, deputy head of planning for East Asia at Japan’s biggest bank, said in an interview in Tokyo last month.
He aims to boost the headcount in Taiwan by about 10 percent from the current 200 as the bank adds a branch in Kaohsiung.
Mitsubishi UFJ also plans to open an outlet in the Fuzhou, China, amid burgeoning trade fueled by the most cordial relations between Taiwan and China.
The bank is seeking to close the gap with Mizuho Financial Group Inc, which has more loans in Taiwan than any other Japanese lender, as shrinking domestic borrowing costs prompt the Tokyo-based companies to expand abroad.
“Japanese banks can be competitive with loans given the low interest-rate environment at home,” said Michael Wu (胡啟泰), a Hong Kong-based analyst at Morningstar Inc. “Building relations with a Japanese lender can also be beneficial for companies with aspirations to expand into Japan.”
Mitsubishi UFJ’s Taiwanese loan portfolio is about ¥350 billion (US$2.8 billion), and Tani said he wants to increase the balance by ¥50 billion over the next three years.
The bank’s goals for the region do not end there, he added.
“If it was just about loans, we could probably cover the whole market from Taipei, but we want to improve the quality of our business by capturing deposits and settlements in renminbi,” Tani said.
The Kaohsiung branch will focus on bringing in business, with administrative functions centered in Taipei, Tani said.
The Fuzhou outlet will help Mitsubishi UFJ seize on deregulation efforts by China’s government that will facilitate trade with Taiwan, he said.
China named Fuzhou as a “model for cooperation” in cross-strait trade as part of the Fujian Province’s trial free-trade zone announced in April. The Fuzhou zone is one of three such zones that followed China’s first in Shanghai.
“There’s no question whatsoever that there will be new opportunities in Fuzhou,” Tani said.
About 80 percent of Mitsubishi UFJ’s Taiwan loan business is with non-Japanese customers, many of which have traditionally strong links with China, Tani said.
The bank sees potential for growth in areas such as Taiwan’s globally competitive electronic components sector, he said.
Mitsubishi UFJ last month arranged a US$300 million loan for the Hong Kong unit of Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), according to Ho Shui-wen (侯水文), a spokesman for parent Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團).
The transaction, backed by about 20 Japanese regional banks, was the largest so-called Samurai loan to a Taiwanese borrower, people familiar with the deal said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”