Bank of Beijing Co (北京銀行), part owned by ING Groep NV, is in talks to buy half of ING’s Chinese life insurance venture in what would be its second acquisition in three months.
Bank of Beijing is negotiating terms for Beijing Capital Group Co’s 50 percent stake in ING Capital Life Insurance Co (首創安泰人壽), it said in a statement yesterday. ING Groep, the biggest Dutch financial-services firm, owns the other half of ING Capital Life, which was established in 2002 and had 2 billion yuan (US$293 million) in premiums at the end of last year.
China is letting banks expand into brokering, fund management and insurance, winding back former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji’s (朱鎔基) 1993 restrictions, to help them become less reliant on income from lending. A 64 percent stock market drop this year has curbed mutual fund sales at banks, and a slowing economy is eroding demand for loans while pushing bad debts higher.
Bank of Beijing won approval in July to buy 20 percent of Langfang City Commercial Bank (廊坊市商業銀行) for 127.5 million yuan. The bank now has 131 branches in Beijing and outlets in Tianjin, Shanghai and Xian.
ING, which received a 10 billion euro (US$13.4 billion) lifeline from the Netherlands, agreed to sell its Taiwanese life insurance unit for US$600 million to Taipei-based Fubon Financial Holdings Co (富邦金控), the two firms said on Monday.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
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