Mitsubishi UFJ to increase staff in Taiwan

Tokyo

MITSUBISHI UFJ Financial Group Inc is seeking to expand its workforce in Taiwan as it pursues business from companies benefiting from increasing trade between the island and China.

"We need to be geographically close to our customers," Tetsuo Tani, deputy head of planning for East Asia at Japan's biggest bank, said in an interview in Tokyo last month. He aims to boost Taiwan headcount by about 10 per cent from 200 now as the bank adds a branch in the second largest city of Kaohsiung.

Mitsubishi UFJ also plans to open an outlet in the Chinese coastal city of Fuzhou amid burgeoning trade fuelled by the most cordial relations between Taiwan and the mainland in more than six decades. The bank is seeking to close the gap with Mizuho Financial Group Inc, which has more loans in Taiwan than any other Japanese lender, as shrinking domestic borrowing costs prompt the Tokyo-based companies to expand…