Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) yesterday said that it lost approximately NT$700 million (US$22.03 million) after Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) stock price tumbled 6.3 percent on Monday following reports the bank was ordered to pay a huge fine for breaching US money-laundering laws.
Chunghwa Post has a 3.5 percent stake in the bank and is one of its major investors. Mega was estimated to have lost NT$20 billion after Monday’s stock price fall.
Chunghwa Post chairman Philip Ong (翁文祺) said that the fine highlights the importance of complying with foreign regulations, while failure to do so can often bring added costs.
The fine should serve as a wake-up call to the Taiwanese banking system, Ong said.
In other news, Ong said Chunghwa Post is to erect two buildings on a plot of land behind the Taipei Beimen Post Office, close to Taipei Railway Station.
The two buildings, which are to have 50 floors and 30 floors respectively, are to become landmarks at the main thoroughfare to the west of Taipei, he said.
Ong said that the project was inspired by a visit to Tokyo in 2013, when he saw the JP Tower, which is right behind the historic Tokyo Central Post Office.
Like the Tokyo post office, the Beimen post office — built in 1930 and Taipei’s oldest — is historic, Ong said, adding that there is 13,223m2 of unused land behind it.
Ong said that the Beimen post office is in a historic district that includes the city’s old North Gate.
As such, Chunghwa Post is working with the Taipei City Government to deliver a zoning plan to allow construction of the new buildings, Ong added.
Based on a preliminary proposal, Chunghwa Post will keep the Beimen post office building and turn it into a postal museum. The smaller new building will house a hotel, as well as a campus for National Chiao Tung University, which has partial ownership over the land. The taller building is to house start-ups for innovative products and services, as well as a shopping center.
The company said that investment in the project could top NT$27 billion, which would be the postal company’s largest investment in recent years.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
COMPLIANCE: The SEF has helped more than 3,900 Chinese verify documents, indicating that most of those affected are willing to cooperate, the MAC said More than 3,100 spouses from China have submitted proof of renunciation of their Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The National Immigration Agency has since April issued notices to spouses to submit proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration on or before June 30 or their Taiwanese household registration would be revoked. People having difficulties obtaining such a document can request an extension of the deadline or submit a written affidavit in lieu of it. The council said it would hold a briefing at 2:30pm on Friday at the immigration agency’s Taichung office in cooperation with the
The government-funded human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is to be expanded to boys at junior-high school starting in September, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. The Taiwan Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, the Taiwan Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Taiwan Immunization Vision and Strategy, the Infectious Diseases Society of Taiwan, the Taiwan Head and Neck Society, the Formosa Cancer Foundation and the National Alliance of Presidents of Parents Associations held a joint news conference in Taipei yesterday to raise public awareness about the risks of HPV infection, regardless of gender. Invited to give an address, HPA Director-General Wu Chao-chun
RSS