Taiwan topped the list of economies around the Taiwan Strait giving to charities regardless of their location at the end of last year, followed by Hong Kong and China, a MasterCard Worldwide survey said yesterday.
The online survey, which polled 3,500 consumers from 12 markets in the Asia-Pacific region between Nov. 20 and Nov. 29, showed that 77 percent of Taiwanese tend to choose charities regardless of location, far ahead of China, where 56 percent would do so.
“Taiwanese are the most charitable irrespective of country boundaries [among countries in the greater China area] and ranked second in the Asia-Pacific region,” Danny Cheung (張懷堅), MasterCard Worldwide area head for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, told a press conference.
In comparison with China, including Hong Kong, male Taiwanese respondents showed more willingness to give to charity than their female counterparts, and the higher their age, the more charitable they felt, the survey said.
“In particular, Taiwanese respondents aged between 50 and 64 felt the most charitable,” said Eva Chen (陳懿文), the company’s vice president of account management.
Chen said among the reasons for donating to charities at the end of the year, tax breaks topped the list for Taiwanese respondents.
“In Taiwan, 55 percent said tax breaks were their top reason for [making] charitable donations, while only 29 percent tend to feel more charitable because of year-end bonuses,” she said.
While more than 60 percent of respondents from India and the Philippines said they felt less guilty about consuming if they contributed to a charity, only 32 percent of Taiwanese said that they would feel better about spending if they also made a charitable donation, the survey showed.
The survey also showed 52 percent of Taiwanese wanted to start the new year right by a doing good thing, the highest among economies in the Asia-Pacific region.
However, Chen said charitable behavior in Taiwan was hurt the most by the global downturn.
“Up to 42 percent donated smaller amounts because of the financial crunch last year,” she said.
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is reportedly making another pass at Nissan Motor Co, as the Japanese automaker's tie-up with Honda Motor Co falls apart. Nissan shares rose as much as 6 percent after Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) instructed former Nissan executive Jun Seki to connect with French carmaker Renault SA, which holds about 36 percent of Nissan’s stock. Hon Hai, the Taiwanese iPhone-maker also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), was exploring an investment or buyout of Nissan last year, but backed off in December after the Japanese carmaker penned a deal
WASHINGTON POLICY: Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs are tipped to hit shipments of small parcels, cutting export growth by 1.3 percentage points The decision by US President Donald Trump to ban Chinese companies from using a US tariff loophole would hit tens of billions of dollars of trade and reduce China’s economic growth this year, according to new estimates by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc. According to Nomura’s estimates, last year companies such as Shein (希音) and PDD Holdings Inc’s (拼多多控股) Temu shipped US$46 billion of small parcels to the US to take advantage of the rule that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free. Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs would slash such
SENSOR BUSINESS: The Taiwanese company said that a public tender offer would begin on May 7 through its wholly owned subsidiary Yageo Electronics Japan Yageo Corp (國巨), one of the world’s top three suppliers of passive components, yesterday said it is to launch a tender offer to fully acquire Japan’s Shibaura Electronics Co for up to ¥65.57 billion (US$429.37 million), with an aim to expand its sensor business. The tender offer would be a crucial step for the company to expand its sensor business, Yageo said. Shibaura Electronics is the world’s largest supplier of thermistors, with a market share of 13 percent, research conducted in 2022 by the Japanese firm showed. If a deal goes ahead, it would be the second acquisition of a sensor business since