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TWSE held public hearing on “Stewardship Principles for Institutional Investors,” in which the public actively participated

Publish time:2016-01-18

Taiwan Stock Exchange (hereinafter referred to as TWSE) held a public hearing on “Stewardship Principles for Institutional Investors” on January 12 2016. Around 50 representatives from government funds, such as National Development Fund, Bureau of Labor Funds, Chunghwa Post, and Public Service Pension Fund, and academia, peripheral units of security markets, financial guilds or associations, life insurance firms, investment trust firms, and foreign investment firms, actively joined the discussion. This shows how much do institution investors value and support the promotion of corporate governance policies in Taiwan.
 
The host of the public hearing, senior executive vice president of TWSE, Mr. Li-Chung Chien, indicated in his speech that institutional investors are those who conduct investment by collecting funds from clients or beneficiaries, no matter they are domestic or foreign, governmental or private funds. These institutions shall exercise due diligence in care and faithful duty, act in the best interests of their clients or beneficiaries, conduct proper monitoring, conversation and interaction with the investee companies, and urge them to adopt and maintain good corporate governance. This is the so-called “stewardship”.
 
Mr. Chien also indicated that the Financial Supervisory Commission had promulgated the Corporate Governance Roadmap in 2013, aiming to cultivate a corporate governance culture through the joint force of legal systems, self-discipline of companies and market oversight mechanisms. As for the market side, a global mainstream is to encourage institutional investors to publicly sign and disclose statements on complying certain stewardship codes or principles. In doing so, signatories commit to establish and disclose policies on stewardship and discharge them. To establish a set of stewardship principles which fit Taiwan’s security markets, institutions including TWSE and Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corporation jointly entrusted academic institutions to conduct research in May last year (2015) and publicly request for consultation on the draft of the Principles since December 3, 2015.
 
In this public hearing, the research project leader Professor Chen-Yu Feng of National ChengChi University shared the international trend of stewardship and the draft Stewardship Principles for Institutional Investors. Participants in the public hearing actively expressed their views and exchanged opinions, which brought tremendous help in promoting the Principles. The TWSE will aggregate opinions from all units and conduct research hoping to introduce Stewardship Principles that cope with the culture and practice of the investment chain and the capital markets of Taiwan. The TWSE also welcomes advice concerning the Principles before February 5, 2016. Please download relevant documents from the website of Corporate Governance Center (http://cgc.twse.com.tw/promoteEvent/promoteEventArticleEn/278).