The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) and the Kaohsiung City Government yesterday jointly hosted a plaque unveiling ceremony for a trial asset management zone in the city as a symbol of the central government’s push to develop Taiwan into an Asian asset management hub.
FSC Chairman Peng Jin-lung (彭金隆) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), as well as representatives of 48 financial institutions, attended the ceremony at Asia New Bay Area (亞洲新灣區), the commission said in a statement.
To promote asset management, Peng in a speech touted the significant success that measures and strategies implemented by the commission have had, the statement said.
Photo: CNA
They included the easing of 28 regulations and deregulation of private banking over the past year, while the number of banks approved to launch wealth management programs for high-net-worth clients has increased to 18, Peng said.
The establishment of a trial asset management zone in Kaohsiung is even more indicative of the government’s regional asset management hub development plans, he added.
Twenty-three financial institutions — 14 banks, six securities investment trust companies and three insurance companies — have obtained permission to conduct pilot operations in the zone, the statement said.
The Kaohsiung City Government has provided administrative incentives, including rent discounts and other subsidies, and administrative assistance, while the FSC has deployed policy instruments to incentivize financial institutions to establish operation units within the zone, the statement said.
The commission is studying the next phase of pilot projects to be allowed in the zone, it said.
That includes expanding the scope of cross-border financial services to retaining local wealth onshore while attracting more funds from abroad, and constructing an offshore asset management platform by integrating banking, securities and insurance businesses to provide one-stop financial services for international customers, it said.
The FSC in September last year unveiled the plan to develop an Asian asset management center with Taiwanese characteristics and selected Kaohsiung as the first site for the plan’s pilot operations.
The Kaohsiung City Government since then has signed memorandums of understanding with 54 financial institutions to operate in the zone, the commission said.
Taiwan is leveraging the “Trillion NT Dollar Investment National Development Plan,” unveiled by the National Development Council in December last year, and the FSC’s asset management hub initiative to help attract funds from domestic and foreign investors into the country’s public infrastructure and industrial development, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said on Tuesday last week.
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