PRESS RELEASE May 24th, 2001

FINANCIAL CONDITIONS

April 2001

Monetary Aggregates For the month of April 2001, the annual growth rates of the monetary aggregates M1A, M1B and M2, measured on a daily average basis, were -7.39%, -6.84%, and 5.03%, respectively. The annual growth rates went down mainly due to the sluggish stock market, and the decelerating growth of loans and investments. For the first four months of this year, M2 exhibited an average annual growth rate of 5.78%.

Deposits and Loans & Investments At the end of April, the annual growth rate of total deposits in major financial institutions, including monetary institutions and the Postal Savings System, declined to 4.74% from 5.31% at the end of March. The annual growth rate of total loans and investments also went downward from 1.45% to 1.12%, largely owing to the slowdown of the economy. If major financial institutions' reclassifying nonaccrual loans and writing-off bad loans, loans and investments extended by life insurance companies and investment and trust companies, as well as funds raised directly from financial markets were taken into account, the total funds raised by non-financial sectors showed an annual growth rate of 4.12% for the month, contributing to an average of 4.75% for the first four months of this year.

Call-loan Rate and Reserve Conditions The average overnight call-loan rate for the month declined from 4.360% to 4.227%. This was mostly influenced by the Bank lowering both the discount rate and the rate on accommodations with collateral by 12.5 basis points on April 23. For the month as a whole, the average free reserves of depository institutions and the Postal Savings System were NT$2.8 billion.

Table 1. Financial Conditions ( April 2001 )[EXCEL][PDF]

Table 2. Factors Contributing to Changes in Monetary Aggregate M2 ( End of April 2001 )[EXCEL][PDF]