The nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose to a new high of US$403.17 billion as of the end of last month, up US$2.21 billion from a month earlier, as the weak US dollar helped boost the conversion value of assets in other currencies, the central bank said yesterday.
For the whole of last year, the foreign exchange reserves surged US$17.62 billion from the end of 2011, the bank’s data showed.
“The main factor behind the increase came from the appreciation of the euro and other main currencies versus the US dollar,” Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), the director-general of the central bank’s department of foreign exchange, said during a press briefing.
Investment gains also helped increase Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves, Lin added.
Taiwan maintained its position of holding the world’s fourth-largest foreign exchange reserves, behind China, Japan and Russia, the central bank said.
The market value of securities investment and the New Taiwan dollar deposits held by foreign portfolio investors reached US$222.7 billion at the end of last month, equivalent to 55 percent of foreign exchange reserves, the bank said in a statement.
Lin said quantitative easing in major economies boosted liquidity and spurred more foreign portfolio investors to send capital into Taiwan for investment in the securities market
The central bank closely monitors this money held by foreign investors, requesting them to invest in the stock market in a week after the inflow, Lin added.
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Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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