The financial sectors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed at this year’s Boao Forum for Asia yesterday that they should step up cooperation in areas that include currency settlement, banking and insurance.
The Boao Forum, described as the Asian equivalent of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, also held a “Cross-Strait Business Roundtable” yesterday, presided over by Frederick Chien (錢復), head of Taiwan’s 38-member delegation, and Dai Xianglong (陳樹希), chairman of China’s National Council for Social Security Fund.
Taiwan’s GRETAI Securities Market chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹) said that in the securities sector, Taiwan and China are highly complementary and that greater liberalization as soon as possible is the wish of all concerned.
Chen said financial institutions on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have signed a memorandum of understanding on financial cooperation, but he added that there is room for discussion on cross-strait securities exchanges.
Chien, who a day earlier spoke for Taiwan’s securities and futures sector when he attended a welcome banquet hosted by Wang Yi (王毅), director of the China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, called yesterday for the financial sectors on both sides to cooperate.
However, the laws on the two sides of the strait are still not comprehensive and should be revised, Chien said.
Meanwhile, Lai Xiaomin (賴小民), president of China Huarong Asset Management Corp, said that financial exchanges between the two sides have lagged behind trade and economic exchanges.
He said that in the banking, securities and insurance sectors, the two sides have a lot of differences, but they could, nevertheless, complement each other.
As an example, he cited the fact that although China’s banks are comparatively slower in terms of their development, they are bigger in scale than their Taiwanese counterparts.
Charles Lo (羅聯福), chief executive of Taiwan-based Chinatrust Financial Holding’s China Business, said that cross-strait financial cooperation is an unstoppable trend, but noted that such cooperation lags behind cross-strait industrial cooperation by one or two decades.
He said that in Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam, yuan accounts still cannot be opened, which he said is an inconvenience for the public and businesses.
This year’s meeting is of particular significance for both Taiwan and China as it is the first Boao Forum to be held since the two sides signed the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in June last year to liberalize cross-strait trade.
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