Briefs | Tai Fung given green light to open Shanghai branch

Tai Fung Bank has been granted permission to expand into Shanghai, as revealed in a notice drafted by the Secretary for Economy and Finance and published in the government’s Official Gazette (BO). As a representative office in Shanghai, the Tai Fung Bank will only be allowed to attend to the interests of credit institutions it can represent, while providing information on transactions that these financial institutions might wish to conduct. According to its website, the Tai Fung Bank was founded in 1942 by Mr Ho Yin and other business magnates from Macau and Hong Kong. The total assets of the bank by the end of 2013 amounted to MOP69 billion.

New pandas expected to arrive within months

The Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau predicts that the new pair of pandas that was promised by the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, in December last year will arrive in the first half of this year. The bureau’s executive committee member, Leong Kun Fong, also expects that the panda named Hou Hou, who is currently living in the Macau Giant Panda Pavilion in Seac Pai Van, will be chosen by the Chinese national breeding program and be sent back to the mainland. Leong says that Hou Hou is in excellent condition in all aspects, and is very confident that the panda will be chosen to take part in the breeding program to mate with different female pandas. However, he is not certain as to whether Hou Hou will return to Macau.