CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) on Wednesday was given a National Sustainable Development Award for its efforts in promoting sustainable business practices.
The awards, organized by the National Council for Sustainable Development, were presented by Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), chairman of the council, at a ceremony in Taipei.
CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) vice chairman Austin Chan (詹庭禎) was in attendance to receive the award.
CTBC Financial won in the corporate category for its active adoption of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and climate governance as guiding management principles, as well as connecting with other stakeholders to fulfill its corporate social responsibility.
The company uses a complete implementation structure to produce diverse, specific and data-driven results, the judges said.
The firm incorporates priority SDG projects into its operating strategy, and comprehensively improves corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) management and risk resilience, they said.
The council recognized CTBC Financial’s five major SDG-linked public welfare initiatives.
They include the “Light Up a Life” national fundraising campaign; establishment of the CTBC Charity Foundation; the “Taiwan Dream Project” creating local community centers for disadvantaged children; the microloan “CTBC Poverty Alleviation Program”; and more to help improve the lives of disadvantaged people.
The judges also commended the CTBC Anti-drug Educational Foundation’s touring educational exhibition “Breaking the Habit: Unlocking the Distance between You and Addiction” for its implementation of Taiwan’s third SDG — to “promote healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages.”
Its environmental and climate initiatives were also viewed highly by the judges.
In 2020, CTBC Financial was Taiwan’s first financial institution to join the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials. It was also the first in the industry to use scenarios provided by the Network for Greening the Financial System in its climate risk assessment report.
After last year becoming Taiwan’s first firm to join the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), CTBC Financial was invited to participate in the TNFD Forum.
In October, the firm joined Business for Nature in calling on countries to adopt stringent policies, attach importance to biodiversity and reverse the biodiversity loss crisis at the UN Biodiversity Conference.
CTBC Financial — which was selected to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) World Index for the fourth time this year and has been a constituent of the DJSI Emerging Market Index for seven consecutive years — has also achieved excellent results in domestic and foreign sustainability-related evaluations, showing that its strength in sustainable governance has garnered global recognition.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
RSS