The central bank is stepping up oversight of the inflow of overseas funds in an attempt to safeguard the local currency from possible attacks by international speculators, the bank's governor said yesterday at the legislature.
Governor Perng Fai-nan's (
The NT dollar has gained 3.44 percent against the US dollar over the past two months.
"We are closely monitoring foreign investors' [NT dollar] accounts every day," Perng said in response to legislators' expressions of concern that the currency could be the target of foreign speculators.
Foreign fund managers now have about NT$150 billion NT dollar in deposits in Taiwan, with only half of the amount used to purchase local stocks, Perng told the legislature's Finance Committee.
The amount was lower than over NT$200 billion of deposits during the same period last year, he said.
"We haven't found any significant increase" in foreign funds flowing into Taiwan now, Perng said.
As part of its efforts to protect the NT dollar from speculatory attacks, the bank plans to inform regulators if the money has not been used to buy local stocks within 30 days of entering Taiwan, Perng said.
Currently, overseas fund managers are not required to spend the funds within a specified period.
Perng yesterday also reiterated the bank's stance on maintaining the local currency's stability.
"The central bank will step in to make adjustments to keep NT dollar fluctuations in a manageable range if the currency overshoots on speculation," Perng said.
The bank will establish more effective measures to curb the currency's steep appreciation because of the constant inflow of overseas funds, Perng said.
However, he appeared to be opposed to the idea of pegging the NT dollar to the Chinese yuan in order to reduce the negative impact on the competitiveness of Taiwanese exporters as China, including Hong Kong, has overtaken the US as the nation's biggest export destination.
"The value of the NT dollar should be decided by supply and demand in the Taipei foreign exchange market. It's not a must for the local currency to keep a close correlation to the Chinese yuan," he said.
Perng's comments came after Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yue (何美玥) said that the NT dollar may follow the Chinese yuan in order to prevent local companies from losing competitiveness to Chinese rivals.
Perng, however, declined to comment on whether the central bank will divert part of its assets away from US dollars, saying that "the question is too sensitive and could cause turbulence in the international foreign exchange market."
Taiwan's foreign currency reserves, worth around US$266.4 billion, are the third-largest in the world, after Japan and China.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
RSS