China Merchants seeks approval to open Taiwan office

Improving China-Taiwan relations enabled lender to apply for presence in the hometown of its Taiwanese clients.

China Merchants Bank, China's sixth largest, said on Wednesday it is aiming to initially open a representative office in Taiwan, a former political rival that all but banned such investments before a recent thawing in ties across the Taiwan Strait.

"We have many Taiwanese clients on the mainland," China Merchants Bank president Ma Weihua said on the sidelines of the opening Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.

"We'll be able to know our clients better through a representative office in Taiwan."

Business ties have flourished across the Taiwan Strait in the last 20 years, but financial firms in China and Taiwan were largely prevented from investing in each others' markets as tensions lingered between the former Cold War rivals.

That has changed under the administration of China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who has eased many restrictions on travel and investment between Taiwan and China in the nearly two years since he took office.

A number of banks on both sides of the strait have expressed interest in opening branches or taking stakes in cross-strait peers since Taiwan and China signed a memorandum of understanding late last year paving the way for such investments.

View the full story in Reuters.