As more and more Taiwanese enterprises seek opportunities in the mainland, Taiwanese banks are following their lead. The bank's chairman Lin Ming Cheng said the move will help the bank to provide proper and timely banking services to the many Taiwan-funded enterprises in Guangdong.

According to regulations of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, Taiwanese banks can apply to start commercial operations on the mainland two years after opening their representative offices. Before that, the representative offices are only limited to non-profit activities such as consultancy on financial affairs, market research and liaison activities.

The PBOC has been consistently encouraging Taiwanese banks to set up business institutions on the mainland. Since 2001, a total of eight Taiwanese banks have set forth applications on opening representative offices in such cities as Shanghai and Beijing. Before that, all the eight banks had received permission to open offices on the mainland.

The island province's Chang Hwa Bank, World Chinese Commercial Bank and Taiwan Cooperative Bank opened offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Kunshan earlier this year.

(china.org.cn November 29, 2002)