Loans to nations targeted by the government’s New Southbound Policy totaled NT$1.18 trillion (US$42.23 billion) as of the end of last month, down NT$9.76 billion from the end of last year, as banks reduced lending due to economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday.
Combined loans to the 18 nations at the end of last year were NT$1.19 trillion, the commission said.
“That came in contrary to our expectations of a 5 percent increase in banks’ combined loans to Southeast Asia this year,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) told a videoconference in New Taipei City.
The decline in lending also came after a string of overseas loans turned sour last year, but Lin said that the commission had not yet concluded that was a contributing factor.
In the first half of this year, loans to India dipped the steepest by 21.4 percent from the end of last year to NT$111.5 billion, while loans to Indonesia decreased 17.4 percent to NT$115.1 billion and those to Singapore fell 12 percent to NT$177.9 billion, FSC data showed.
Australia continued to be the largest market for overseas lending, but loans to the country also fell 1.6 percent to NT$259.8 billion, data showed.
Vietnam was the only market that saw loan growth, with combined lending expanding 20.9 percent to NT$257.6 billion over the period, as more Taiwanese companies increased investments or production in the country and thus needed more funding from banks, Lin said.
Taiwanese banks also have the most units — branches, offices or subsidiaries — in Vietnam, at 58, among the New Southbound Policy countries, he said, adding that the more units a bank has, the more business opportunities it attracts.
Banks have 54 units in Cambodia, 17 in the Philippines and 15 in Myanmar, he said.
The FSC has approved seven banks to set up new branches in Vietnam, while most of them intended to open units in the capital, Hanoi, but have not yet received permission from Vietnamese regulators, Lin said.
US crude futures on Friday topped US$80 a barrel for the first time since November 2014 as a global energy crisis boosts demand at a time when OPEC+ producers are keeping supplies tight. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery popped above the key psychological level before pulling back and closing up 1.34 percent at US$79.35 a barrel, gaining 4.57 percent from a week earlier. Brent crude for December delivery increased 0.54 percent a barrel to US$82.39, up 3.92 percent from a week earlier. This week brought many indications that supplies would remain constrained: Saudi Aramco said a global natural gas shortage was
Units of Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co are targeting to resume full operations of their Ho Chi Minh City plants by the end of next month, a move that could provide relief to global supply chains. Saigon Hi-Tech Park is helping its tenants, many of which are running at about 70 percent capacity, to operate fully next month, park deputy manager Le Bich Loan said in a phone interview. She did not elaborate on the steps the park is taking, particularly efforts at bringing back workers who fled to home provinces. The Ho Chi Minh City unit of Nidec Sankyo Corp,
CHIP CRUNCH: Apple’s woes show that even the king of the technology world is not immune from global shortages made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic Apple Inc is likely to slash its projected iPhone 13 production targets for this year by as many as 10 million units as prolonged chip shortages hit its flagship product, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company had expected to produce 90 million new iPhone models in the final three months of this year, but it is now telling manufacturing partners that the total would be lower because Broadcom Inc and Texas Instruments Inc are struggling to deliver enough components, the people said. Apple gets display parts from Texas Instruments, while Broadcom is its longtime supplier of wireless components. One Texas
Down a dusty farm track in Chilean wine country, behind a wooden gate wrapped in chains, forestry experts are nursing a plantation of saplings whose bark holds the promise of potent vaccines. Quillay trees, technically known as Quillaja saponaria, are rare evergreens native to Chile that have long been used by the indigenous Mapuche people to make soap and medicine. In the past few years, they have also been used to make a highly successful vaccine against shingles and the world’s first malaria vaccine, as well as foaming agents for products in the food, beverage and mining industries. Now two saponin molecules,
RSS