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.