President Chen Shui-bian (
He said using the issue as a political tool only impeded reform.
While there was much room for improvement, the direction of the second stage financial reform was correct and the intention was righteous, he said.
"To continue the reform is necessary," Chen said in a speech at the opening of an international forum in Taipei on economy, finance and accounting. "The second financial reform did not fail. It just hasn't succeeded yet."
Chen said what concerned him most when he came to office in 2000 was not China but a possible financial crisis.
The previous administration had allowed the number of banks and branches to increase dramatically between 1993 and 2000, Chen said. Fierce competition among banks fueled the alarming non-performing loans (NPL) ratio, he said.
Six financial-related bills were enacted in 2001 to pave the way for the first wave of financial reform. In August 2002, the government set the goal of lowering the NPL ratio to 5 percent and raising the average capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to 8 percent within two years.
The goal was achieved ahead of time, with the NPL ratio down to 2.32 percent and CAR up to 10.11 percent.
Following the Economic Development Advisory Conference in 2001, the government decided to push a second wave of financial reform, including overhauling the credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations and establishing the Financial Monitoring and Management Committee in July 2004, Chen said.
In October 2004 the government set four goals for the second reform phase -- to have three financial institutions with individual market shares of at least 10 percent, halve the number of state-owned banks to six, halve the number of financial holding companies to seven and have at least one domestic financial institution operated by a foreign entity or listed overseas.
Chen said he hoped financial issues could be separated from politics and that economic issues were not used as political tools to deter financial reform.
In other news, Chen solicited opinions from foreign experts on whether to designate Oct. 25 as the nation's independence day. He said he would like to know what the National Committee on American Foreign Policy thought.
Committee president George Schwab said they would be happy to offer opinions off the record.
The idea was proposed by Bruce Herschensohn, a Pepperdine University professor during a meeting with Chen on Tuesday.
Also see story:
Analysts skeptical on bank reforms
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS