Taiwan's biggest earthquake since 1999 is likely to cause some disruption across Asia's semiconductor supply chain, analysts said, after chipmakers from TSMC to UMC halted some operations to inspect facilities and relocate employees, Reuters reported. The powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan's eastern coast near Hualien County on Wednesday morning, killing nine people and injuring 800.
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China's "reunification" with Taiwan is inevitable, President Xi Jinping said in his New Year's address on Sunday, striking a stronger tone than he did last year with less than two weeks to go before the Chinese-claimed island elects a new leader, Reuters reported. The Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are happening at a time of fraught relations between Beijing and Taipei. China has been ramping up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims over democratically governed Taiwan.
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The recent collapse of U.S. regional banks might not grow into a global financial crisis given their small scale and less complex assets, but more peers might turn into zombie banks if not properly regulated, the central bank said on Facebook, Taipei Times reported. Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) bankruptcy might not lead to a systemic crisis like Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S.
Taiwan's central bank said on Wednesday it will not adopt foreign exchange control measures and that foreign exchange management measures are enough to maintain financial market stability, Reuters reported. The Taiwan dollar has, like other major Asian currencies, depreciated sharply in recent weeks due to aggressive interest rate hikes in the United States and U.S. dollar strength as well as worries over slowing global economic growth.
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Taiwan’s financial exposure to Sri Lanka, which declared bankruptcy earlier this month, was NT$3 billion (US$100.28 million) as of the end of last month, with most of it in the banking and the asset-management sectors, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said in a meeting on Thursday, the Taipei Times reported. Ten local banks had loans totaling NT$350 million — NT$290 million to Sri Lankan companies and NT$60 million to the nation’s financial institutions — as of the end of last month, down 44.6 percent from a year earlier, a commission tally showed.
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Taiwan's government is considering fining tech giant Foxconn up to T$25 million ($835,600) over its investment in a Chinese chip conglomerate without first getting regulatory approval, two sources briefed on the matter said on Friday, Reuters reported. Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, said this week it has become a shareholder in embattled Chinese chip conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup via a 5.38 billion yuan ($797 million) investment by a subsidiary.
A senior Taiwanese minister has pressed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to include the island in the United States' forthcoming Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, his office said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Tai last month declined to say if Taiwan would be invited to join the Biden administration's Indo-Pacific economic plan, spurring Senate criticism that excluding the island would be a missed opportunity.
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Taiwan will set up a $1 billion credit program aimed at funding projects by Lithuanian and Taiwanese companies amid economic pressure from China over an office that the island opened in the European Union country, Lithuanian officials said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. It follows Taiwan’s announcement last week about creating a $200 million investment fund to help Lithuania amid a diplomatic row with Beijing. American and Lithuanian officials say China has blocked imports from the Baltic nation, a close U.S. ally.
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The Ministry of Education (MOE) has sent inspectors to investigate the finances of the Chang Jung Girls’ Senior High School in Tainan after school dean Tai Chih-hsun confirmed that the school is on the brink of insolvency and cannot pay its faculty, the Taipei Times reported. In August, the school’s board of directors declared a salary cut, which led to the dismissal of two board members: Wang Chao-ching, who doubled as the school’s dean, and Chen Tsung-yen, the deputy minister of the interior.
Taiwan's TransAsia Airways Corp said on Tuesday it would wind down operations and suspend all scheduled flights, failing to recover from two plane crashes in almost three years, Reuters reported. In addition to struggling to overcome safety concerns raised by Taiwan's regulator, the island's third-largest carrier has been hit by intense competition, reporting losses for the previous six quarters. It shut down its low-cost offering, V Air, last month.
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