The Taipei City Government is considering selling US$500 million of bonds to investors abroad in what would be the country's first sale of overseas municipal debt, as the city seeks to make up for a funding shortfall caused by declining tax revenue.
Taipei last year had NT$139 billion (US$4 billion) in revenue and NT$151 billion in expenditure, its Web site said. Tax funds this year are expected to fall short of earlier projections by 5 percent to 6 percent, said Chen Hwei-pin (
The city will try to keep its borrowing below 15 percent of expenditure for next year's budget, he said.
"The shortfalls have accumulated since last year," Chen said. "Overseas interest rates can be more stable over a longer time period."
The Taipei City Government, like the central government, is trying to find ways to deal with a slump in tax revenue resulting from a slowdown in the economy.
The city is considering selling bonds backed by rental income from land occupied by Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, and plans to sell 400 million shares it holds in Fubon Financial Holding Co (
Apart from the city's bond sales, the central government is proposing to sell NT$100 billion (US$2.95 billion) of bonds that will be backed by proceeds from sales of shares in state-owned companies to help pay for the government's spending plan.
The government will seek legislative approval for a NT$500 billion budget that would be spent on infrastructure projects over five years, Minister without Portfolio Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) said.
"We would have a clause that allows the government to borrow first and then to sell shares to repay," Hu said.
The government could sell shares in companies such as Bank of Taiwan (
President Chen Shui-bian (
The central government, which has to keep annual borrowing below a legal limit of 15 percent of expenditures, is proposing to exempt the NT$500 billion budget from the debt limit.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS