Annual growth in the nation’s M1B and M2 money supply last month increased for the second consecutive month, as domestic investors’ move to repatriate capital offset the impact from capital outflows by foreign portfolio investors, the central bank said yesterday.
M1B, a narrow measure of the money in circulation, including currency and passbook savings deposits, rose 7.89 percent from a year ago, compared with a 7.04 percent year-on-year increase in May, the bank said in its monthly report.
The increase was the highest since June 2011, according to the bank’s data.
The broader M2 measurement — which includes M1B, time deposits, foreign currency deposits and mutual funds — increased 4.82 percent year-on-year last month, higher than the annual increase of 4.32 percent in May, the report said.
“The rising year-on-year growth in M1B and M2 was mainly due to higher growth in bank loans and investments,” Chen E-dawn (陳一端), deputy head of the bank’s economic research department, told a media briefing.
Concerns over the end of US quantitative easing led foreign investors to withdraw US$2.96 billion from Taiwan last month, which has had a negative impact on the growth of M1B and M2 money supply, Chen said.
However, domestic investors were also worried about volatility of overseas markets and redeemed as much as NT$90 billion (US$3 billion) from overseas funds last month, offsetting the effect of foreign capital outflow, Chen said.
The central bank said some listed Taiwanese firms might repatriate some overseas capital following the distribution of cash dividends this month and next month.
Taiwanese listed companies are set to distribute a total of NT$189.5 billion in cash dividends this month, followed by NT$318.3 billion next month, bank data showed.
For the first six months of this year, the average annual growth rates of M1B and M2 were 6.05 percent and 3.86 percent respectively, statistics showed.
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
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
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
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS