President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) economic advisory panel is scheduled to present an economic proposal to the president today, suggesting the government transform the nation into a hub of asset management for the Asia-Pacific region.
Vincent Siew (
To achieve that goal, Siew said the panel will suggest the government authorize the Financial Restructuring Fund Committee to provide guarantees to all depositors and creditors of problematic banking institutions handled by the fund.
A bill revising of the financial restructuring fund, a mechanism set up in 2001 and modeled after the US Resolution Trust Corporation, still waits for legislative approval. The Legislative Yuan will begin a new session at the end of next week.
The government reiterated yesterday that it will seek to raise its financial restructuring fund to NT$680 billion -- well above the opposition parties' cap of NT$320 billion.
Officials said the government hopes to get legislative approval for the change by October.
"The Cabinet hopes the statute revision of the fund will win legislative approval soon, but there are some other bills that need to be addressed ... we expect the bill to be passed by October," an aide to Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) quoted Lin as saying.
Vice Minister of Finance Yang Tze-kaing (
The fund was aimed to help bail out troubled financial institutions. The financial sector would suffer if there was no such mechanism, Yang said.
"The government needs tools and liquidity in order to proceed with the planned financial reforms," he said, adding that "the more money we have the stronger the effects."
Lawmakers agree the fund is of vital importance, but they have yet to reach consensus on its allowable size.
PFP Legislator Norman Yin (
"We want the bill to be approved, but we do not want the government to waste [money]," Yin said.
Yin said the PFP's stance is for the fund cap of NT$320 billion and the Cabinet can seek a special budget if it needs more.
It is still uncertain if the fund bill can be included in next month's agenda of the legislature, Yin said.
Taiwan's 52 banks wrote off a total of NT$410.8 billion in non-performing loans (NPL) last year, cutting the banking sector's average NPL ratio to 6.12 percent at the end of December from 7.12 percent at the end of September.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
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