Taiwan's bond market attracts attention

FinanceAsia’s first local debt conference in Taiwan proved timely. The importance of the bond market is growing. Chin Lung Tseng, senior executive vice president of China Securities pointed out during his speech that the bond market’s outstanding issuance stood at  NT$1.8 trillion ($60 billion) in July this year, compared to NT$200 billion 10 years ago. That is larger than the Hong Kong local debt market, which had outstandings of $54 billion in July this year. The difference, however lies in the fact that the Hong Kong bond market has three times as much outstanding corporate debt to government debt, whereas in Taiwan, that ratio is reversed.