Financial companies slashed their exposure to Hong Kong to NT$934.8 billion (US$31.13 billion) at the end of last month, dropping by NT$30.6 billion from NT$965.4 billion at the end of last year, as firms turned cautious amid the COVID-19 pandemic and political uncertainty, data released by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) showed.
The banking sector’s Hong Kong exposure slid from NT$693.8 billion at the end of last year to NT$687.7 billion on April 30, the lowest over the past 15 months since NT$677 billion in January last year, the data showed.
“Banks’ exposure to Hong Kong has been declining since last year amid protests against China’s intervention in the territory, and the virus outbreak this year prompted banks to further lessen their exposure,” a commission official said by telephone.
Bank loans plunged NT$11 billion to NT$527 billion last month from NT$538.8 billion in March after keeping steady at NT$534.5 billion in the first two months of this year, the data showed.
Taiwanese banks, which focus on corporate banking in Hong Kong, slowed their lending as they became more cautious about loan quality, said the official who declined to be named, adding that some big syndicated loans might have also been delayed due to the unrest.
Total Hong Kong exposure by Taiwanese securities firms, securities investment trust firms and futures companies decreased by NT$6.9 billion to NT$74.6 billion last month compared from the end of last year, which the commission attributed mainly to firms reducing their investment positions in Hong Kong securities by NT$7 billion to NT$24.7 billion, compared with NT$31.7 billion at the end of last year.
“Companies decreased their investments due to the turmoil in the equity market in March. They are expected to be more agile in adjusting their portfolios as uncertainty increases,” another commission official said.
Taiwanese insurers’ Hong Kong exposure totaled NT$172.5 billion at the end of last month, down NT$17.6 billion from the end of December last year, as life insurers cut their investments in financial products by NT$17.5 billion to NT$171.2 billion, the data showed.
That caused insurers’ ratio of exposure to their net worth to dip from 0.71 percent to 0.64 percent during the period.
Hong Kong’s financial market might be more volatile in the following months in light of more protests against Beijing’s proposed national security law for the territory, the official said.
The commission has been monitoring the situation closely and urges local companies to conduct risks management to ensure stability in the financial market, FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) said on Tuesday.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day