Taiwan Urges Insurers to Give Local Firms Billions in Mandates

Taiwan is calling on its asset-rich life insurers to give billions of investment mandates to domestic money managers in a government push to turn the chip-making economy into a regional financial hub.

Taipei’s top financial regulator expects insurers to move an initial NT$1 trillion ($32.6 billion) to local asset management firms, as the government builds out a new special wealth management zone in the southern city of Kaohsiung in an effort to compete with Singapore and Hong Kong.

Until recently, local regulations led Taiwan’s life insurers to mandate only a small part of their aggregated $1.2 trillion of funds to ...