Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
Speaking to nearly 200 executives of British investment and financial agencies at the seminar, Lin urged them to seize the business and cooperation opportunities between the two countries.
Lin said that the Ministry of Finance is slated to release late next year its holdings of government shares of all Taiwan's public banks, except for the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), to allow for a greater degree of foreign ownership in domestic banks in line with a government privatization project.
Stressing that Taiwan is poised to extend foreign ownership in its banking sector to sharpen the domestic industry's competitive edge as part of its bid to build the nation into a regional financial hub, Lin said that relevant legislation has been underway to encourage mergers and consolidation among banks.
According to the finance minister, there are currently more than 50 banks in Taiwan, including 12 government-controlled ones that account for more than 60 percent of the domestic banking industry's assets.
However, he pointed out that profits posted by the public banks lag far behind those of private banks and that this is the reason behind the government's decision to launch the privatization plan to increase their profitability.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman Hsieh Fa-ta (
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
The US Federal Reserve is expected to announce a pause in rate cuts on Wednesday, as policymakers look to continue tackling inflation under close and vocal scrutiny from US President Donald Trump. The Fed cut its key lending rate by a full percentage point in the final four months of last year and indicated it would move more cautiously going forward amid an uptick in inflation away from its long-term target of 2 percent. “I think they will do nothing, and I think they should do nothing,” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis former president Jim Bullard said. “I think the
The TAIEX ended the Year of the Dragon yesterday up about 30 percent, led by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). The benchmark index closed up 225.40 points, or 0.97 percent, at 23,525.41 on the last trading session of the Year of the Dragon before the Lunar New Year holiday ushers in the Year of the Snake. During the Year of the Dragon, the TAIEX rose 5,429.34 points, the highest ever, while the 30 percent increase in the year was the second-highest behind only a 30.84 percent gain in the Year of the Rat from Jan. 25, 2020, to Feb.
Cryptocurrencies gave a lukewarm reception to US President Donald Trump’s first policy moves on digital assets, notching small gains after he commissioned a report on regulation and a crypto reserve. Bitcoin has been broadly steady since Trump took office on Monday and was trading at about US$105,000 yesterday as some of the euphoria around a hoped-for revolution in cryptocurrency regulation ebbed. Smaller cryptocurrency ether has likewise had a fairly steady week, although was up 5 percent in the Asia day to US$3,420. Bitcoin had been one of the most spectacular “Trump trades” in financial markets, gaining 50 percent to break above US$100,000 and
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