Taiwan opened exchanges for the yuan and the New Taiwan dollar yesterday, paving the way for an expected influx of Chinese tourists from Friday.
As Taiwan and China have yet to work out clearing or settlement measures, the yuan has been pegged to the US dollar. Traders had to pay NT$4.552 per yuan and received NT$4.339 for selling an equal amount of yuan.
The central bank approved 14 banks with 1,240 branches to process the exchanges, which had been limited to the outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu since October 2005.
Taiwanese and foreigners only have to produce their identification cards or passports respectively when applying to convert the yuan into the local currency, with a limit of 20,000 yuan a day or vice versa.
No official data was available about the trade turnover at the end of the day yesterday, but banks reported more inquirers than traders.
Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), deputy director-general of the central bank’s department of foreign exchange, said the agency had yet to decide whether to release the figures daily or periodically.
“Given the high number of outlets involved in the currency conversion, the central bank will not know the turnover today [yesterday],” Lin said by telephone.
The monetary regulator also approved 46 hotels, 15 department stores and six other venues to offer exchange services for the Chinese currency. These 67 venues will only purchase the yuan, however, because of a short supply of the Chinese currency.
Taiwanese make about 4 million trips to China annually, while 1 million Chinese tourists are expected to visit Taiwan this year, the central bank said, adding that the imbalance poses a challenge on the supply of yuan.
The Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), which has stocks of about 100 million yuan, said only 40 of its outlets would offer the currency trade. Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) said 120 of its branches would offer the exchanges, but that only 15 would provide two-way services.
Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) said it would buy the yuan from HSBC (匯豐銀行) and Bank of America.
The rest of the 14 banks allowed to exchange the yuan are Mega International Commercial Bank Co (兆豐國際商銀行), Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), Cathay United Bank Co (國泰世華銀行), Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank Ltd (上海銀行) and First Commercial Bank Ltd (第一銀行).
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