EXPANSION:New chairman David Cheng unveiled his blueprint for growth, including exploring ASEAN markets and promoting digital convergence at home

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 17, 2016
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) yesterday said it would explore new partnerships,

including forming a joint venture with a peer in Southeast Asia as the nation’s biggest telecom searches for new growth engines overseas.

The overseas expansion plan is in line with the government’s “new southbound policy” as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration encourages Taiwanese enterprises to divert their investments from China to ASEAN member states to better manage operational risks, Chunghwa Telecom chairman David Cheng (鄭優) told reporters.

Cheng unveiled his blueprint for Chunghwa Telecom’s business outlook at his first media appearance after assuming his new job at the company yesterday.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 17, 2016
By: Christine Chou

TAIPEI, Taiwan — After successfully orchestrating a series of remarkable corporate

turnarounds, Fenno Chang has gained a reputation for his fearless attitude when it comes to business.

“Without enough money or connections, I could only start from digging for gold in heaps of garbage — investment projects most people aren’t interested in. Garbage may be garbage, but what I have found is that some of it is worth transforming and reshaping into something valuable.”

Dubbed “Chang the Daredevil” after his exploits in the real estate market, the Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT) chairman is living up to his moniker with his recent decision to take over the scandal-hit TransAsia Airways. Many had thought the troubled Taiwan-based carrier was beyond salvation, but Chang seems to think otherwise.    [FULL  STORY]

In other words, workers in Taipei who earn less than NT$22,000 per month will be qualified as “low- and middle- income” households.

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/15
By: Wendy Lee , Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei, New Taipei, and Kaohsiung city governments are all raising the poverty thresholds for next year,

according to media reports.

Starting from next year, Taipei City’s poverty line will be raised by NT$382 from NT$15,162 to NT$15,544, the highest among Taiwan’s major cities. In other words, workers in Taipei who earn less than NT$22,000 per month will be qualified as “low- and middle- income” households.

According to Taipei’s Social Welfare Department, the shares of low-income households in the city have decreased over the last three years, while the shares of low- and middle- income households have increased.

It can be served as an indication that the government’s anti-poverty policies have had a positive impact on the city, the department said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:2016/12/15
By: Tien Yu-pin and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) First Bank will open its first Philippine branch in the capital Manila on Friday, a

statement from the bank indicated on Thursday.

The Southeast Asian country has worked on infrastructure and fiscal reform and is likely to enjoy sustained medium to high economic growth, said the bank.

The Manila branch will initially provide savings, loans, trade finance and currency exchange services, the bank added.

First Bank has branches in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia.
[SOURCE]

The Tsai government risks being known internationally as a tech ‘competition killer,’ just as it tries to reposition the country as a ‘digital nation.’

The News Lens
Date: 2016/12/15
By: Edward White

“We respectfully request that further action on these competition-killing proposals be halted,” Michael

Beckerman, president of the United States Internet Association, wrote in a letter to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) this month.

The letter was prompted by the regulatory quagmire surrounding the world’s biggest ridesharing service and one of the best-known Silicon Valley startups, Uber, which continues to dominate headlines in Taiwan for the wrong reasons.

A suite of measures by officials, including meteoric proposed fines and a call to block access to the Uber application from mobile app stores, amounts to an “unprecedented targeting of a leading technology company and would effectively shut down ridesharing in Taiwan,” Beckerman says.

While the association’s letter focused on Uber and ridesharing, it easily could have been written about popular apartment-sharing business Airbnb, which remains illegal in Taiwan. And as Beckerman suggests, the regulatory minefield faced by new technology companies in Taiwan directly conflicts with the government’s stated vision of “becoming a digital nation and smart island.”   [FULL  STORY]

Low-cost carrier becomes 100 percent Taiwanese

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/14
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – China Airlines is taking complete control over Tigerair Taiwan by buying the 10

percent of shares in the low-cost carrier it didn’t already have, according to a board decision Wednesday.

The company’s only main low-cost rival in Taiwan, V Air, stopped flying in September before its parent, TransAsia Airways, decided to cease operations altogether.

CAL formed Tigerair Taiwan in December 2013 as a three-way joint venture, with itself holding 80 percent of shares, its affiliate Mandarin Airlines 10 percent, and Tiger Airways Holdings the remaining 10 percent.

The CAL board said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with Tiger Airways Holdings to buy its share, and that both sides were satisfied with the transaction. The takeover would produce improved results and a more optimal usage of resources, CAL said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/12/14
By: Tsai Yi-chu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Dec. 14 (CNA) DBS, a Singapore-based banking group, said Wednesday that Taiwan’s

economic momentum is expected to pick up in 2017, with its gross domestic product (GDP) likely to grow 2.1 percent.

The DBS forecast suggested an improvement from 2016, when the local economy was estimated by the banking group to grow 1.5 percent from a year earlier in reflection of a stronger global economy.

Ma Tieying, a DBS economist, said that based on a forecast by the International Monetary Fund — which said the global economic growth for 2017 will hit 3.4 percent, up from 3.1 percent estimated for 2016 — Taiwan is expected to do better next year accordingly.

She said that Taiwan is likely to climb out of a mediocre 2016. The average economic growth for the first three quarters of this year stood at only around 0.8 percent, according to the bank.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 15, 2016
By: CNA

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s property market is currently undergoing a correction and the capital gains tax

imposed on housing sales could continue to impact the home market, although the local economy has showed signs of improvement, Singapore-based DBS Group said on Wednesday.

Over the longer term, the local property market is expected to have a soft landing after the current correction, the Singapore banking group added.

Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) , an economist at DBS Research, said that after 10 years of climbing, home prices in Taiwan hit a peak in 2014 before trending lower in 2015, since when the economy slowed down.

The local property market, Ma said, has also been impacted by the earlier efforts of the Central Bank of the Republic of China to tighten credit controls on home purchases and a tax reform introduced at the beginning of this year. She said there was no question Taiwan’s property market has entered a period of correction.    [FULL  STORY]