The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said it plans to significantly raise the ceiling of yuan-denominated bonds issued by Chinese banks to 45 billion yuan (US$7.25 billion) in the first half of next year to cope with rising demand.
That would mean an 80 percent expansion from the current level of 25 billion yuan.
The FSC is also to consider permitting local non-professional investors, or individual investors, to invest in yuan-denominated bonds known as Formosa bonds, as demand from retail investors for the financial products is on the rise.
The commission targets an expansion of the total issuance of Formosa bonds to 60 billion yuan in Taiwan next year, FSC Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) said on Wednesday before attending meetings with his Chinese counterparts to discuss setting up a financial supervisory platform for banking, insurance, and the securities and futures sectors.
The target would mean 100 percent growth from this year’s issuance. If hit, Taiwan would become the world’s second-largest offshore trading market for yuan-denominated bonds, surpassing Singapore.
Singapore has so far accumulated 33 billion yuan in yuan-denominated bonds, Tseng said.
As the Chinese banking sector remains the largest issuer of Formosa bonds and shows continuous demand to issue bonds, the commission plans to raise the maximum for their issuance to 45 billion yuan in the second half of next year, the commission said in a statement.
A total of 44 Formosa bonds had been listed in Taiwan for transactions as of Dec. 12 — with issuance standing at 31.4 billion yuan — since the launch of Formosa bonds in March last year, the statement said.
Chinese banks have issued 29 Formosa bonds with total value of 23 billion yuan, accounting for more than 70 percent of overall issuance, data offered by the commission showed.
The domestic banking sector was the major investor in the primary market, holding 36.41 percent of shares, followed by the insurance sector and brokerage houses, which accounted for 34.88 percent and 22.45 percent respectively, statistics showed.
In related news, the commission has reached a consensus with its Chinese counterpart to pursue three goals regarding the banking sector: simplifying the procedure and accelerating the review of deregulation, launching a direct communication channel for cross-strait financial supervisory institutions, and building an emergency communication mechanism.
Improving financial cooperation in these areas might be mutually beneficial for further deregulation, Tseng said.
The cross-strait financial supervisory meetings are scheduled to continue today, with the team led by Tseng to return to Taiwan tomorrow.
According to data offered by the commission, 11 Taiwanese banks have opened branches in China, while Chinese banks have three branches and one office in Taiwan.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS