State-run Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (TCFH, 合庫金控) on Wednesday said the operating environment might start to improve in the second half of the year as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic this quarter is over.
TCFH chairman Lei Chung-dar (雷仲達) made the remarks after the company’s annual general meeting, when government-appointed candidates secured an overwhelming majority on the company’s board, winning 13 of 15 seats.
“The worst impact from the virus outbreak is likely over for Taiwan and things might start to improve going forward,” said Lei, who is also a director on the central bank board, and poised to remain at the helm of the bank-focused conglomerate.
Main subsidiary Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行), the nation’s largest lender by number of branches, aims to increase its loan book by 3 percent this year, aided by companies shifting production back to Taiwan from China as well as a recovery in property deals.
The lender, one of Taiwan’s top mortgage operators, posted an 8.5 percent pickup in land financing and another 2.7 percent gain in mortgage lending in the first quarter, compared with a year earlier.
Lei said that people who previously postponed property purchases might start to resume buying after the virus crisis in Taiwan began to wind down late last month.
Government data showed that the housing market from February to last month held resilient with a low single-digit percentage decline compared with the same period last year.
Meanwhile, demand for factory and office space is expected to gain traction from returning companies seeking to diversify manufacturing sites and cope with US-China trade tensions, brokers have said.
Overall, the record low interest rate would lend support to property purchases, Lei said.
There is no need to worry about a property bubble, he said, adding that real demand underpins housing deals these days and the central bank has policy tools such as credit controls to curb speculation.
The boom in domestic tourism is also favorable for consumer banking, Lei told shareholders, as all lenders have offered cash rebates or credit bonuses to customers who use stimulus vouchers to pay for transportation, hotels, restaurant meals, shopping or other recreational expenses.
Shareholders at the meeting approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1.15 per common share.
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
RSS