New home mortgages from five major state-run banks last month reached the highest level for March, while the average interest rate on new housing loans hit a record low, central bank data released on Thursday showed.
Total new mortgages granted by Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) increased 15.83 percent month-on-month and 15.5 percent year-on-year to NT$53.69 billion (US$1.78 billion) last month, the data showed.
For the first quarter, total new mortgages extended by the banks amounted to NT$138.3 billion, down 16.6 percent from the previous quarter, but up 5.95 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
The increase in mortgages issued last month reflected recovering demand in the domestic housing market after the Lunar New Year holiday.
It was also in line with the latest housing transaction data released by the six special municipalities, which show that transactions rose 9.9 percent month-on-month and 7.8 percent year-on-year to 19,824 units last month, with Taoyuan posting the highest monthly growth of 20.7 percent and the biggest annual increase of 36.6 percent, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said, citing local government figures.
The increase was also buoyed by demand for home purchases and the completion of new construction projects in some areas, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported last week, citing central bank Economic Research Department Deputy Director Wu Yih-Jiuan (吳懿娟).
In the first quarter, the total number of housing transactions in the six special municipalities increased 6.8 percent to 53,364 units from a year earlier, Evertrust said earlier this month.
Although the COVID-19 outbreak did not significantly affect the housing market in the first quarter, the pandemic might start to affect transactions from this month, Wu said.
Despite rising mortgage demand, the five banks’ average mortgage rate last month fell to 1.593 percent per year, which was down from the previous month’s 1.611 percent and the lowest on record, the central bank data showed.
The central bank attributed the rate decrease to lenders competing to offer preferential rates for quality customers. The central bank on March 19 cut its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points, which also helped push mortgage rates last month to below 1.6 percent, it said.
Separately, average lending rates at the five banks last month fell to 1.291 percent, down 0.143 percentage points from the previous month, due to falling interest rates of various loans, the central bank said.
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS