Taiwan’s bid to become a leading Asian asset-management hub is gathering momentum, with assets under management climbing more than NT$4 trillion (US$127 billion), reaching a key two-year milestone ahead of schedule, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Peng Jin-lung (彭金隆) said yesterday.
The progress marks the completion of the first phase of a six-year road map to transform Taiwan into a regional center for wealth and asset management, with further targets set for four and six years.
“Thirty years ago, we could only imagine it,” Peng said at a financial competitiveness forum in Taipei. “Now we have the capital, the industries and the talent to reach that goal.”
Photo: CNA
Earlier government efforts since the mid-1990s had limited impact, but structural conditions today are fundamentally different, with strong domestic capital, active investment demand and a maturing financial ecosystem creating a prime window for reform, he said.
While Taiwan still trails Singapore and Hong Kong in tax competitiveness, English-language proficiency and foreign-exchange flexibility, the FSC head highlighted the nation’s unique advantages, globally competitive technology and manufacturing industries, tightly integrated supply chains, substantial private wealth and a deep pool of financial professionals.
Rather than attempting to replicate or replace existing centers, Taiwan aims to carve a differentiated role aligned with its industrial strengths, Peng said.
Concrete policy initiatives are already reshaping the market. In July, the FSC launched a dedicated asset-management zone in Kaohsiung, permitting 38 types of financial services.
Forty institutions have been approved to operate in the zone, and all four major international accounting firms have established a presence, Peng said.
Banks in the zone have already attracted more than NT$2 trillion in assets under management.
Retail participation is growing as well. Taiwan introduced the Taiwan Individual Savings Account (TISA) mechanism in July to encourage long-term investment habits and support financial planning for Taiwanese amid an aging population.
So far, 22 fund houses offer 37 TISA-qualified funds, attracting more than 60,000 accounts in just three months, Peng said.
Cross-border market links are expanding. Taiwan debuted its first Japan-dual-listed exchange-traded fund in Tokyo in September, while seven major foreign asset managers have announced plans to establish or expand operations locally, signaling rising international interest.
The FSC bolstered Taiwan’s financial infrastructure by opening the Asian Asset Management Center Promotion Office in September and launching an Asian innovation financing platform in October to help turn Taiwan into a regional counterpart to NASDAQ — the exchange for major tech firms such as Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc.
“Building a regional hub is a long-term challenge,” Peng said. “It took decades for existing centers to reach their scale, but if we do not act now, the window will become increasingly narrow.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS