The government should make public the investment portfolios of four government-run funds (四大基金) on a timely basis to prevent stock manipulation, an independent legislative candidate said yesterday.
Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), a Green Party Taiwan legislative candidate, said the government should disclose the individual shares that the four government-run funds buy and sell to avoid insider trading and ensure fairness in the stock market.
"The government should make the funds' cash flow transparent to avoid the kind of manipulation that gives certain people -- especially corporations -- access to insider information, which individual investors do not have," Pan said.
The four government-run funds, each worth more than NT$200 billion (US$6.16 billion) to NT$300 billion, are the Civil Servant Pension Fund (退撫基金), the Labor Pension Fund (勞退基金), the Labor Insurance Fund (勞保基金) and the NT$3 trillion Postal Savings Fund (郵政儲金), Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan (台灣促進和平基金會) executive director Chien Hsi-Chieh said.
Pan accused the government of using the funds for political ends.
"The four government-run funds and the National Stabilization Fund (國安基金) have been used to bribe individual investors by propping up the benchmark, which has always been used as a campaign strategy to benefit [the ruling party's] candidates," Pan said.
"Rather than merely disclosing shares by sector, which makes it hard for the public to supervise, the government should disclose individual company shares to clear doubts over the government's cronies whom it may have attempted to benefit," Chien said.
Chien said the government should make announcements at least on a monthly basis, which "will not affect the funds' operations."
But Steve Lin (
"The disclosure of individual shares is unnecessary," Lin said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Chien urged the government to scrap its NT$500 billion Nation Stabilization Fund, which was set up to prop up the market in the event of investor panic.
"The budget for the stabilization fund was borrowed from other banks and did not come from government coffers. If the investment fails, it will be at the expense of taxpayers," Chien said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS