Minister of Finance Lee Yung-san (李庸三) yesterday said the NT$140 billion (US$3.98 billion) financial reconstruction fund is "absolutely not enough" for helpign banks write off bad loans in this country.
Instead, Lee appealed to lawmakers for support of his ministry's proposal to increase amount of the fund, a mechanism similar to the one adopted by the Resolution Trust Corp in the US in early 1990s.
Lee made the remarks when he answered questions during a general interpellation session at the legislature.
Legislator Norman Yin (殷乃平) of the opposition People First Party noted during the interpellation session that the overdue loans of domestic financial institutions have hit NT$1.6 trillion (US$4.55 billion), which he termed a serious problem, although Premier Yu Shyi-kun in his oral report had omitted to mention financial problems.
Yin asked Lee how he plans to solve the problem of the huge sum of non-performing debts.
Lee said that the financial reconstruction fund has been in operation since last year and that financial institutions have written off NT$230 billion (US$6.55 billion) in bad debts to date.
He added that his ministry will continue to encourage the financial sector to write off as many bad debts as possible.
However, he noted that overdue loans increased last year despite the operation of the financial reconstruction fund.
Lee said that between NT$70 billion and NT$80 billion of the financial reconstruction fund had been used to help financial institutions write off their dud loans.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of