The central bank yesterday welcomed positive remarks by its Chinese counterpart last week to consider removing the daily yuan conversion limit, as demand for the Chinese currency is flourishing.
Taiwan has been seeking the removal of the daily 20,000 yuan (US$3,193) conversion cap, in line with its bid to develop the nation into a regional offshore yuan market after Hong Kong. The special administrative region scrapped the limit in November last year.
Taiwan might soon follow suit after People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said on Thursday that China is willing to review and ease the cap given rapidly growing demand for the yuan, especially for cross-border business needs, Department of Foreign Exchange adviser Sinclair Kung (龔新光) said.
“There is definitely a chance for easing,” Zhou said during a media briefing on financial reform and foreign exchange policies.
Zhou’s comments are seen as favorable in Taiwan, where yuan deposits rose to 318.77 billion yuan last month, up 2.76 percent from January, despite fewer working days, the central bank said.
The figure represents an increase of 8.17 times since Taiwan allowed yuan deposits in February 2013.
Kung attributed the rapid increase to expectations that the yuan might gain in value in the course of internationalization and has proved relatively stable against the US dollar.
The Chinese currency strengthened against the New Taiwan dollar last year.
Yuan deposits in domestic banking units grew 3.46 percent to 266 billion yuan last month, but slowed 0.61 percent to 52.71 billion yuan in offshore banking units, the central bank said.
The figures lend support to the yuan’s popularity among individual customers, as banks offer high interest rates, and fund houses highlight yuan-denominated investment products.
For example, Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) offers interest rates of 3.88 percent for one-year yuan time savings deposits.
The planned removal of the conversion limit would allow Taiwanese greater flexibility in making yuan investments, Kung said.
In contrast, yuan deposits weakened 2.2 percent to 981.44 billion yuan in Hong Kong in January, after rallying above the 1 trillion mark in December.
A variety of reasons accounted for the pullback in Hong Kong, where hot money comes and goes quickly in search of higher yields, foreign exchange official Gloria Chen (陳婉寧) said.
Formosa bonds, or yuan-denominated bonds sold in Taiwan, helped keep some yuan funds in the local market, Chen said, as the bonds are not considered foreign investments, giving local insurance companies more room for asset allocation.
Yuan remittance totaled 171.06 billion yuan last month, falling 34.08 percent from January, as the Lunar New Year cut down business activity among technology and financial firms, the central bank said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last