Taipei Exchange

The Taipei Exchange celebrates the debut of its Sustainable Bond Market with a digital ceremony to comply with the COVID-19 prevention measures. The competent authorities, issuers, and external reviewers are participating in the form of a digital greeting. The Executive Director of the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office in Taipei, Mrs. Tania Berchem, the Head of Sustainable Finance of ICMA, Mr. Nicholas Pfaff, and the Co-founder and CEO of CBI are also sending pre-recorded greetings to the Taipei Exchange for the milestone in the Taiwan bond market.

Sustainable development has become a universal value that is a remedy to lead human beings to a better future. With the support and guidance from the Securities and Futures Bureau, the Taipei Exchange integrated the listing and trading mechanism for green, social, and sustainability bonds into a unified platform: The Sustainable Bond Market. This dedicated market is designed to provide detailed information to promote sustainability, to develop sustainable finance, and to enhance the international visibility of Taiwan. For more information, please visit the upgraded official webpage of the Sustainable Bond Market at https://www.tpex.org.tw/web/bond/sustainability/index.php?l=en-us.

According to Mr. Phillip Chen, the Chairman of the Taipei Exchange, sustainable finance is one of the key elements to strengthen the resilience for enterprises to fight and mitigate the severe negative social-economic consequences due to climate change or the COVID-19 outbreak. Chairman Chen hopes that the first batch of social bonds listed on the Taipei Exchange will be the bellwether and encourage more companies to join the Sustainable Bond Market. The Chairperson of the Financial Supervisory Commission, Dr. Tien-Mu Huang, sends a congratulatory message to the Taipei Exchange and says the FSC has officially launched a series of financial policies including the Corporate Governance 3.0, Green Finance Action Plan 2.0, and Capital Market Blueprint 2021-2023 in 2020 to support the development of sustainable finance in Taiwan. Chairperson Huang hopes the Sustainable Bond Market will facilitate accelerating the development of sustainable finance. The Director-General of Securities and Futures Bureau, Dr. Chen-Shan Chang encourages public and private sectors to collaborate in boosting sustainable finance via this dedicated market.

In addition to the opening ceremony of the Sustainable Bond Market, this event is going to celebrate the listing of the first batch of social bonds as well. The first batch of social bonds consisted of 3 tranches of senior unsecured financial debentures issued by CTBC Bank, Bank SinoPac, and KGI Commercial Bank respectively. The social bond issued by CTBC Bank raised NTD 1 billion; the proceeds will be allocated to projects related to socioeconomic advancement and empowerment. Bank SinoPac and KGI Commercial Bank issued NTD 1 billion and NTD 0.7 billion respectively. The proceeds raised by Bank SinoPac and KGI Commercial Bank will be injected into projects related either to increase job opportunities, affordable housing, or mitigating the severe negative social-economic consequences due to the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information, please visit the official website of the Sustainable Bond Market.