Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (工商協進會) chairman Lin Por-fong (林伯豐) yesterday said that he would not attend a Taiwan-US economic dialogue scheduled for today.
Lin on Tuesday said that he received an invitation from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to join the dialogue, at which US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment Keith Krach is to attend with his delegation.
“The association will not send a substitute, because there is no time to find one,” the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported on its Web site yesterday, citing Lin.
Photo: CNA
The story cited sources saying that AIT does not like participants to talk about the event and conveyed its concerns after Lin spoke with the media.
Lin, who is chairman of Taiwan Glass Industry Corp (台灣玻璃) said that the association needs only to respond to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, because the ministry — not other institutes — is in charge of regulating and supporting local industries, he said.
Prior to Krach’s arrival, local media reported that he was to host the US-Taiwan Economic and Commercial Dialogue — a new platform established to bolster bilateral economic ties — after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last month said that the government would work to lift restrictions on imports of US pork and beef, days after US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar visited Taiwan.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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