The Bureau of Labor Insurance yesterday said that it has started distributing earnings from the Labor Pension Fund’s nearly NT$700 billion (US$21.3 billion) record-high gains to the personal accounts of about 12.92 million participants in the fund, with more than 50 percent pocketing more than NT$20,000 each.
About 7.49 million workers, or 58 percent of the total number of employees enrolled in the fund, received more than NT$20,000 each from the fund’s NT$698.97 billion gains last year, it said.
Another 4.67 million workers, or 36.2 percent, received more than NT$50,000 each, it added.
Photo: Lee Chin-hui, Taipei Times
The bureau also reported that the funds it manages posted gains of NT$108.7 billion in January — which translated into a rate of return of 1.61 percent — aided by a global financial market boom due in part to better US economic data.
However, the boom in global financial markets was offset to some extent by the emergence of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索) and its alleged low-cost AI model, which raised concerns over investments in the technology, the bureau said.
Bureau data showed that 57.33 percent of the labor funds were invested overseas in January, while the remaining 42.67 percent were invested domestically.
The combined value of the funds — which includes the Labor Pension Fund, the Labor Retirement Fund, the Labor Insurance Fund, the Employment Insurance Fund and the Arrear Wage Payment Fund — totaled NT$7.13 trillion as of the end of January.
The value of assets in the new Labor Pension Fund, launched in 2015, totaled NT$4.68 trillion, the highest among the funds, with a rate of return of 1.47 percent for January, the bureau said.
The Labor Retirement Fund, established in 1984, had about NT$1.07 trillion in assets, with a rate of return of 2.3 percent.
People can check their pension allocations via the bureau’s online system at edesk.bli.gov.tw/me/#/na/login or in-person at any local bureau office, it said.
Those who have accounts with Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行), E. Sun Bank (玉山銀行), Taishin Bank (台新銀行), Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行), First Bank (第一銀行) or Chunghwa Post (中華郵政) can check their latest profit allocations at ATMs starting today, as the distribution takes time to process, the bureau said.
Distribution of the earnings from last year would be completed by the end of this month, it added.
Additional reporting by Lee Ching-hui and Sam Garcia
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS