ECONOMY
Taiwan fifth in wealth report
Taiwan ranked fifth in the world last year in terms of net financial assets per capita, also known as private wealth per person, according to Allianz’s latest Global Wealth Report published on Wednesday. The report, which assesses the financial situation of more than 50 nations worldwide, found that Taiwan’s net financial assets per capita were 92,360 euros (US$108,720). In Asia, Taiwan was second only to Japan, whose net financial assets per capita were assessed at 96,890 euros. It was the nation’s best ranking to date, with the household asset growth rate tripling to 10 percent since 2015. The report also said that the nation’s private debt was growing at a stable rate of 4.8 percent and warned of the consequences of a steep hike. “Taiwan’s debt growth has remained relatively stable in the past few years, which is a good trend,” Allianz’s Michael Heise said in the report. “Should private debt increase to too high a level, that would be lethal to Taiwan’s economic development.”
CRIME
Drunk driving to cost more
Starting in March next year, motorists convicted of drunk driving are to be required to pay a higher punitive premium for compulsory automobile liability insurance, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Tuesday. The punitive premium is to be raised to NT$3,600 per violation, up from NT$2,100, to reflect the cost of compensation for victims of drunk driving, it said. There is no limit to the number of times violators can be charged a punitive premium, it said. The system was first introduced in March 2014 and by July, 67,730 insured motorists had been charged punitive premiums on top of their regular premium, which is NT$1,866 a year for men and NT$1,457 for women, Insurance Bureau statistics showed.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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