The incoming administration is moving to establish a new quasi-sovereign wealth fund with local and overseas cash to finance emerging industries, a top adviser to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
According to a plan she is considering, the government would be the largest shareholder in the fund, with ownership at less than 50 percent, while the rest would be comprised of local and foreign investors, said Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), Tsai’s top adviser on industry policy.
The fund would help nurture the development of key industries such as biotechnology and smart machinery, Kung said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“There is a lot of money in Taiwan, but people are just collecting fixed-interest payments,” said Kung, who is also vice president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院).
“An innovative financing mechanism can make full use of the local excess savings,” he said.
Tsai, who is to take office on May 20 after winning in a landslide in January’s election, campaigned on fostering new industries as economic growth slumps from a global trade slowdown.
The nation is facing increasing pressure to find new engines for growth as Chinese firms become more competitive and demand weakens in the electronics sector, its key export.
The new leadership hopes to keep central government deficit at less than 3 percent of GDP, so it needs to find more innovative ways to fund new industries beyond selling debt, Kung said.
The proposed fund’s investments would focus on five areas highlighted by Tsai’s campaign: “green” energy, biotechnology, national defense, Internet of Things and smart machinery.
While the fund might also acquire fledgling businesses, unlike Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings Pte, it would not buy large companies.
Kung declined to comment on the size of the fund.
The new company might hire foreign managers, Kung added.
The Cabinet-level National Development Council said in July last year that it would consider forming a sovereign wealth fund, but added that it does not have to include foreign-exchange reserves.
Council Deputy Minister Huan Lin (林桓) this week said exploratory research conducted by the current administration would be passed to Tsai’s government if need be.
The nation’s economy grew 0.75 percent last year, the least since 2009, as exports shrank over the past 12 months.
Local technology firms have declined as demand for PC hardware fell, while those in other nations moved into Internet services.
The five worst performers in Morgan Stanley’s 106-member Asia-Pacific Infotech Index last year came from Taiwan.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS