British lenders have been summoned to meet the country’s treasury chief to try to reduce mortgage rates, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an editorial published yesterday.
The meeting was called because cuts to the Bank of England’s base rate have not yet translated into cheaper loans for customers, Brown wrote in the News of The World, a mass-market tabloid.
The British leader promised new measures to make sure the lower rates were passed on to mortgage holders.
“Although the Bank of England has cut rates in recent months, the banks have not always been passing those reductions to their customers,” Brown wrote. “So [Chancellor of the Exchequer] Alistair Darling will be meeting with the main mortgage lenders to discuss what further steps can be taken.”
The news came a day after the chairman of Britain’s Council of Mortgage Lenders said lending could fall by half this year as bankers raised their prices to dampen demand. Banks have increasingly cut back on loans to customers amid worries of too much risky debt in the credit market.
The navy has installed 13 Phalanx Block 1B close-in weapons systems on its warships, increasing their defensive firepower, a defense official said on Saturday. The systems cost the navy NT$10.16 billion (US$314.67 million), while eight additional Block 1A systems are being upgraded in the US and are expected to be delivered next year, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Phalanx system used by Taiwan to defend its warships and key radar installations is a radar-cued gun system capable of firing 4,500 rounds a minute at targets as far away as 1.5km, the official said. With their superior range of
RACE FOR CHIPS: The Dresden site would help Europe reduce its reliance on Asia for semiconductors, while Germany aims to produce one-fifth of the world’s chips by 2030 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday broke ground in Dresden, Germany, on its first European plant as the continent seeks to safeguard its chip supplies amid growing US-China tensions. TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) attended the event, together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the heads of Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and Robert Bosch GmbH, which each hold a 10 percent stake in the venture. TSMC owns a 70 percent stake in the plant. “Together with our partners, Bosch, Infineon and NXP, we are building our Dresden facility to meet the
RECOVERY: Overall, average income across all age groups increased, climbing to a record NT$709,000 last year, on the back of an improved economy, the DGBAS said Taiwanese workers under the age of 30 last year, on average, earned an annual income of NT$545,931 (US$17,044), a new high, as the economy continued to improve, data released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. That equated to monthly earnings of NT$45,494 per person, and marked an increase from NT$535,667 in 2022, the data showed. In addition to an improved economy, average incomes rose as the unemployment rate declined and the minimum wage rose, the statistics agency said. Overall, average income in Taiwan also hit a new record of NT$709,000 last year, up from NT$704,000 in 2022, the data
CARROT AND STICK: Palauan president said in 2020 the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country pledged to flood his country with tourists if it switches alliance Beijing weaponized tourism to the Pacific archipelago of Palau over its allegiance to Taiwan and its accusations that China was behind a major cyberattack there, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr told The Associated Press (AP). Palau, along with Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, is one of the three Pacific nations to recognize Taiwan as an independent democracy. Taipei’s allies in the Pacific have dwindled from six countries in 2019. Nauru abandoned its ties in January. Whipps told the AP in an interview late on Thursday that, in 2020, while he was running for his current post, the Chinese ambassador to a neighboring country