A Japanese government panel called for a new framework that would allow even healthy banks to receive taxpayer funds to boost capital and encourage lending, in a step to guard Japan's biggest banks further against failures.
The existing framework allows Japan to offer public funds to a bank only if its failure would have a serious impact on the national or regional economies. It was used last month to transfer US$16 billion to Resona Holdings Inc after its capital fell below the regulatory minimum.
The Financial System Council, commissioned by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, said a slumping economy and falling prices may prompt even healthy banks to cut lending to avoid defaults, which could further undermine the economy and public welfare.
With their capital already threat-ened by losses on bad loans and stockholdings, "there is a limit on how much money banks can raise by themselves," according to the panel's report.
The panel also suggests imposing profit targets on banks that receive money, to ensure that the new method won't be used to keep unprofitable banks in business.
The proposed framework is designed to offer aid mostly to "mega banks," said Tetsuya Katada, who headed the panel's discussions.
The government will seek legislative authorization to make the panel's proposal a law which would be effective for a limited period of time, Katada said.
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
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SHIFTING FOCUS: Investment in China fell due to increasing costs, the US-China trade war and China’s economic development slowdown, a spokesperson said The percentage of Taiwanese businesses investing in China has been steadily declining since 2010 due to increased costs, the US-China trade war and the slowdown of China’s economic development, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) spokesperson Li Pao-wen (黎寶文) said. In terms of Taiwan’s total outward investment, the percentage of businesses investing in China has dropped from 83.8 percent in 2010 to 11.4 percent in 2023, 7.5 percent last year and 2.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, Li said in an exclusive interview with Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister paper. Li said that 70 percent of these businesses experienced
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