President Tsai Ing-wen said Sept. 12 that the government is making Taiwan’s financial environment more appealing to foreign investors while promoting industrial innovation, transformation, and small and medium enterprise development.
 
Maintaining a stable business environment attracts overseas funding and creates a solid foundation for all sectors to thrive in Taiwan, she said. This approach is delivering significant dividends as illustrated by the country’s steadily growing economy and lowest unemployment in over 10 years, she added.
 
Tsai made the remarks while receiving Michael Corbat, chief executive officer of U.S. financial conglomerate Citigroup, at the Office of the President in Taipei City.
 
According to Tsai, the government’s economic policies are also benefiting the local stock market. The daily average turnover surged 31.1 percent year on year to US$6 billion and the TAIEX topped 10,000 points in May 2017, she said, adding that this was the first time the benchmark index had reached the milestone in four years.
 
At the same time, Tsai said, the government is strengthening the fundamentals of Taiwan’s banking institutions through stricter regulatory oversight. As a result, the sector’s nonperforming loan ratio stands at a respectable 0.28 percent, she added.
 
Other examples of effective government policymaking in the sector, Tsai said, include a financial development action plan launched in June by the Cabinet and the Financial Technology Development and Innovative Experimentation Act promulgated in January.
 
The plan seeks to build Taiwan into an advanced and globally competitive financial market, while the act—the world’s first regulatory sandbox legislation—is conducive to advancing the uptake of new financial technology and spurring innovation, Tsai added. (SFC-E)

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