Local banks had approved 5,056 loan applications totaling NT$81.6 billion (US$2.72 billion) for businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as of Wednesday last week, surging from 510 applications totaling NT$7.39 billion two weeks earlier, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed yesterday.
Eighty-seven percent of the loans, or 4,177 applications for NT$71.7 billion, were provided by state-run banks, for an average of NT$17 million per application, the data showed.
Private banks lent NT$9.9 billion to 879 firms, for an average of NT$11 million per application, data showed.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“It seems that the government did not have a strong incentive to encourage private banks to help affected businesses,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee in Taipei.
The approved loans represented a tiny fraction of the nation’s total lending of NT$6.9 trillion to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Tseng said.
The lending does not appear significant, as the government’s relief program aims to support SMEs, commission Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
The commission would review its incentives for private banks to approve more loans for businesses affected by the pandemic, Koo said, adding that the government would cover most risks.
The Small and Medium Enterprise Credit Guarantee Fund of Taiwan offers credit guarantees of 80 to 90 percent, or even full guarantees, for small-scale firms, he said.
Separately, the FSC would not lift a ban on short selling on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange, even though the local equity market has recovered, Koo said.
The commission first needs to evaluate whether the pandemic has been brought under control in Europe and the US, as the local market is highly sensitive to foreign equity markets, he said.
The regulator announced the ban in the middle of last month to curb speculative trading amid “irrational declines” on the stock market.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS