Taiwan firms form fund for SE Asia investment

Taiwan firms form fund for SE Asia investment

TAIPEI (Reuters): Taiwan's Chinatrust Commercial Bank and up to seven other Taiwan firms are forming a fund to invest in stocks in Southeast Asia, chiefly Malaysia, Chinatrust chairman Jeffrey Koo said yesterday.

Koo said a delegation representing the private fund donors would travel to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines within a week or two to carry out the plan. Chinatrust Commercial Bank is a leading venture capital and investment bank that has close links with the government.

Taiwan will also relaunch its bid to form an Asian emergency fund under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum at a February APEC meeting in Mexico, Koo said. "We will propose the emergency fund at the end of the month at the ministerial meeting in Mexico," said Koo, a Taiwan delegate to APEC who heads the APEC Business Advisory Council's financial committee.

Koo acknowledged Taiwan was acting in opposition to the position of the United States. Taipei, keen to carve out a helping-hand role for itself in Asia's financial turmoil, launched the Asia fund proposal on January 24 at a meeting of the APEC financial committee in Taipei.

Taiwan, relatively unscathed by Asia's financial turmoil, has been looking for ways to put its vast wealth to beneficial use in southeast Asia, even though the region's governments all recognize only Beijing, not Taiwan's exiled Republic of China.