Taiwan’s Hua Nan Commercial Bank is considering buying a stake in China’s Fujian Haixia Bank in what would be the first time a Taiwanese bank has invested directly in a Chinese counterpart.
The deal would be relatively small in economic terms – the partly state-owned Hua Nan bank is Taiwan’s seventh-biggest bank by total assets – but the political significance would be greater. It would indicate the gradual improvement in relations between Taiwan and China only two weeks before Taiwan’s presidential elections.
Taiwanese banks have opened branches and signed co-operation agreements in China in the two years since Beijing opened the door to them but deeper ties have been slow to develop.