Taiwan will strive for preferential status for its banks in upcoming trade talks with China, a report said yesterday, after Chinaese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) promised to cement cross-strait ties.
The government hopes such a move would allow any individual Taiwanese bank to buy up 30 percent of any Chinese lender, as opposed to the current 20 percent ceiling China imposes of foreign investors, the Chinese-language Commercial Times said.
It said Taiwan also hoped its banks would be allowed to open branches as soon as they enter the Chinese market, instead of following the prerequisite that foreign banks have to first open representative offices for two years.
The Financial Supervisory Commission was not immediately available for comment on the report.
During a press conference at the end of China’s annual session of parliament on Sunday, Wen hailed the fast warming ties with Taiwan and guaranteed Beijing would “grant benefits” to Taipei in the coming trade talks.
Taiwanese officials have said they aim to hold the second round of formal trade talks with China this month to exchange lists of industries that will be entitled to a preferential status in tariffs and investments.
Taiwan and China held their first round of formal talks in January in Beijing to decide on procedural issues.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
Packed into a small room, a drone, bipedal robot, supermarket checkout and other devices showcase a vision of China’s software future — one where an operating system developed by national champion Huawei (華為) has replaced Windows and Android. The collection is at the Harmony Ecosystem Innovation Center in the southern city of Shenzhen, a local government-owned entity that encourages authorities, companies and hardware makers to develop software using OpenHarmony (鴻蒙), an open-source version of the operating system Huawei launched five years ago after US sanctions cut off support for Google’s Android. While Huawei’s recent strong-selling smartphone launches have been closely watched for
The waves of the Aegean Sea lap gently at the tables and chairs of two beach restaurants on Greece’s Halkidiki peninsula. It is an idyllic scene, but one that is totally illegal. Like many others in Greece, the two establishments on Pefkochori Beach do not have a license to set up shop so close to the water. After a wave of protests last summer by locals about bars and restaurants illegally covering beaches with sunbeds and tables, the Greek state is taking action. It is cracking down on rogue tourist practices with surveillance drones, satellite imagery and a special app
AI BOOM: With many stocks trading at historically high levels, the TAIEX is expected to drop about 600 points in the third quarter as investors seek to pocket their profits Taiwan’s main board could experience a technical pullback after the TAIEX soared more than 28 percent in the first half of this year following a strong showing by artificial intelligence (AI)-related stocks, analysts said on Saturday, predicting that the index would make a comeback in the fourth quarter. On Friday, the last trading session of this month, the TAIEX rose 126.27 points, or 0.55 percent, to 23,032.25, pushing up the main board by 5,101.44 points, or 28.4 percent, in the first six months of the year. Of the major indices in the world, the TAIEX only trailed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index