Following data released this week showing that the nation's most troubled banks were getting worse, an industry watcher yesterday urged the government to take action quickly so that they do not become an even greater burden on taxpayers.
"They have become vampire banks, sucking the blood from the government's [coffers]," said Chen Chung-hsing (陳松興), president and CEO of Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), the local arm of Standard & Poor's.
The latest figures from the central bank, released on Wednesday, show that the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio at the end of December at six of the nation's 10 worst-performing banks had risen by between 3 and 10 percentage points from the same period last year.
Chen urged the legislature to hasten the approval of the government's NT$908.6 billion Financial Restructuring Fund (
"The longer the plan is delayed, the more losses the taxpayer will have to cover," Chen said.
At the worst financial institutions, the Ministry of Finance's efforts to reduce bad loans appear to have failed.
Banks where the NPL ratio rose during the past two years include Chung Shing Commercial Bank (中興銀行), from 57.34 percent to 64.53 percent; Kaohsiung Business Bank (高雄企銀), from 33.86 percent to 43.50 percent, and Hualien Business Bank (花蓮企銀), from 27.69 percent to 27.87 percent.
The 10 most-troubled banks had an average NPL ratio of 25.3 percent, up from 24.4 percent in 2001. The slow economic recovery, however, continues to strain banks' ability to generate earnings and deal with their bad loans.
Public funding will be needed to support bank lending and help them alleviate their financial problems, Paul Grela, director of Fitch Ratings' financial institutions in Asia, said yesterday.
After writing off a record NT$410 billion in bad loans, banks reported an average 8.85 percent NPL ratio last year. According to Fitch, the figure may actually be between 12 percent and 15 percent, while Chen estimates the figure to be between 10 percent and 12 percent.
Opposition parties have been accused of stalling the passage of measures to deal with the NPL problem in an attempt to undermine President Chen Shui-bian's (
But PFP Legislator Norman Yin (
Rising defaults on consumer debt, which accounts for 47 percent of all bad loans, may further deteriorate the nation's bad-loan problem this year, Yin said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
RSS