State-owned Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), the main subsidiary of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), yesterday said that its board has approved plans to set aside NT$100 billion (US$3.32 billion) to support urban renewal projects.
The move came as the nation’s largest bank by loan book lends force to the government’s measured effort to prop up the construction industry without reviving a property fever.
“We have created a special mortgage operation aimed at helping facilitate renewal of the nation’s old buildings,” Bank of Taiwan chairman Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) told a media briefing.
Owners of buildings at least 30 years old or declared unsafe by authorities may apply for loans with preferential interest rates if they agree to urban renewal projects, Lyu said.
The mortgage operation is a supporting measure to new legislation that cuts both land and housing taxes for old and unsafe homes if their owners agree to tear them down and rebuild, he said.
About 140,000 buildings nationwide are more than 30 years old, with 50,000 of them in dire need of repairs and reinforcement, Ministry of the Interior data showed.
The ministry provides urban renewal projects with preferential floor space terms to help ease resistance from occupants.
Bank of Taiwan set the interest rates for renewal loans at 2.3 percent for the maximum duration of five years, Lyu said, adding that it would give further discounts if home owners are still paying mortgages.
Potential applicants may borrow up to 100 percent of their home’s values in special loans, as a lack of liquidity often slows the pace of renewal, Lyu said.
Small single houses also qualify for the lending program, although average urban renewal projects require minimum construction areas of 1,000m2, he said.
TECH TITAN: Pandemic-era demand for semiconductors turbocharged the nation’s GDP per capita to surpass South Korea’s, but it still remains half that of Singapore Taiwan is set to surpass South Korea this year in terms of wealth for the first time in more than two decades, marking a shift in Asia’s economic ranks made possible by the ascent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). According to the latest forecasts released on Thursday by the central bank, Taiwan’s GDP is expected to expand 4.55 percent this year, a further upward revision from the 4.45 percent estimate made by the statistics bureau last month. The growth trajectory puts Taiwan on track to exceed South Korea’s GDP per capita — a key measure of living standards — a
Samsung Electronics Co shares jumped 4.47 percent yesterday after reports it has won approval from Nvidia Corp for the use of advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which marks a breakthrough for the South Korean technology leader. The stock closed at 83,500 won in Seoul, the highest since July 31 last year. Yesterday’s gain comes after local media, including the Korea Economic Daily, reported that Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E product recently passed Nvidia’s qualification tests. That clears the components for use in the artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators essential to the training of AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek (深度求索), and finally allows Samsung
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS