Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) announced an extension of full guarantees on bank deposits for one year to the end of next year yesterday, in view of the measure’s effectiveness in stabilizing the financial market.
Wu made the announcement when answering questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) at a question-and-answer session at the legislature.
“If the guarantee were to end this year as originally planned, we have fears about a possible outflow of funds. After careful consideration, we decided to extend the policy, as it is in effective achieving stabilization,” Wu said.
The blanket guarantee by the government for all depositors’ savings was made by former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) last October. His decision overturned a decision by the Financial Supervisory Commission made the previous day setting a NT$3 million (US$90,000) threshold for the guarantee.
The policy took effect on Nov. 1 last year and was due to expire at the end of this year.
Wu said that the policy enabled the country to stay stable despite the turmoil in the global financial market and that some Southeast Asian countries had followed Taiwan’s example.
“Although the countries adopted the measure later than us, they set the expiration date of the guarantee at the end of 2010. If we did not continue the policy, people might send their money overseas,” Wu said.
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia had guaranteed their deposits through to the end of next year, while Australia and Thailand had set a deadline at the end of 2011.
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