State-owned Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 台灣銀行), the banking arm of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), yesterday approved plans to set up a representative office in Frankfurt, Germany, as it takes steps to brace for Brexit and deepen its presence in Europe.
The move makes the bank the first Taiwanese lender to take a pre-emptive move against the potential fallout on its European operations from the UK’s decision to leave the EU.
“The international situation has changed and merited the expansion,” BOT chairman Joseph Lyu (呂桔誠) told reporters, referring to the beginning of Brexit negotiations that might affect the London branch’s business.
London risks losing its title as the world’s financial hub if it can no longer enjoy favorable taxation terms, the free flow of commodities and personnel, and other benefits of EU members following its departure.
The BOT has no intention of shutting down the London branch, but is taking cues from other international corporations by creating an extra base to improve services for Taiwanese firms in the trade bloc, Lyu said on the sidelines of a public function in Taipei.
Most of its peers have voiced their intentions to move from Britain to Germany or France, if necessary, he said.
The BOT assessed locations in France, Ireland, Luxembourg and other countries before deciding on Frankfurt, Lyu said.
It plans to file expansion applications with the Financial Supervisory Commission next month and pursue cooperation pacts with European lenders in November to pave the way for the Frankfurt office, Lyu said, adding that the new office might open in next spring.
The bank is also seeking expansions in other parts of the world to strengthen its global network, he said.
It plans to establish a representative office in California’s Silicon Valley next month, followed by a representative office in Bangkok, Thailand, in December, Lyu said, adding that it is also interested in establishing outlets in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS