Currency - New Taiwan dollar

The New Taiwan dollar ( code: TWD; symbol: NT$, also abbreviated as NT) is the official currency of the Republic of China (ROC) used in the Taiwan Area. Formally, one dollar (圓) is divided into ten dimes (角), and to 100 cents (分), although cents are never used in practice. The New Taiwan dollars has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollars per one new dollar. There are a variety of alternative names to the units in Taiwan. The unit of dollar is usually written in simpler form as undefined. Colloquially, the currency unit usually called undefined (kuài, literally piece) in Mandarin, undefined (kho͘, literally hoop) in Taiwanese Hokkien, and undefined (ngiùn, literally silver) in Hakka.

Since the year 2000, the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is the central bank of Taiwan, which currently issues the New Taiwan dollar. While the Bank of Taiwan issued banknotes prior to 2000, it was also the de facto central bank between 1949 and 1961.

The adjective "new" (新) is only added in formal contexts where it is necessary to avoid any ambiguity, even though ambiguity is virtually non-existent today. These contexts include banking, contracts, or foreign exchange. The currency unit name can be written in 圓 or 元, which are interchangeable. They are both pronounced yuán in Mandarin. But they have different pronunciations in Taiwanese Hokkien (îⁿ, goân) and Hakka (yèn, ngièn). The name 仙 in Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka for cent is likely from the hundredth unit 錢 (sen) of Japanese era Taiwanese yen or from English.

In English usage, the New Taiwan dollar is often abbreviated as NT, NT$, or NT dollar, while the abbreviation TWD is typically used in the context of foreign exchange rates. Subdivisions of a New Taiwan dollar are rarely used, since practically all products on the consumer market are sold in whole dollars. Nevertheless, banks do record cents (hundredth of dollar).

The New Taiwan dollar was first issued by the Bank of Taiwan on June 15, 1949, to replace the Old Taiwan dollar at a ratio of 40,000 to one. The first goal of the New Taiwan dollar was to end the hyperinflation that had plagued Nationalist China due to the Chinese Civil War.

After the communists captured Beijing in January 1949, the Nationalists began to retreat to Taiwan. China's gold reserve was moved to Taiwan in February 1949. The government then declared in the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion that dollars issued by the Bank of Taiwan would become the new currency in circulation.

Even though the New Taiwan dollar was the de facto currency of Taiwan, for years the silver yuan remained the legal currency. The value of the silver yuan was decoupled from the value of silver during World War II. Many older statutes have fines and fees given in this currency.

According to statute, one silver yuan is worth three New Taiwan dollars. Despite decades of inflation, this ratio has not been adjusted. This made the silver yuan a purely notational currency long ago, nearly impossible to buy, sell, or use.

When the Temporary Provisions were made ineffective in 1991, the ROC lacked a legal national currency until the year 2000, when the Central Bank of China (CBC) replaced the Bank of Taiwan in issuing NT bills. In July 2000, the New Taiwan dollar became Taiwan's legal currency. It is no longer secondary to the silver yuan. At this time, the central bank began issuing New Taiwan dollar banknotes, and the notes issued earlier by the Bank of Taiwan were taken out of circulation.

The exchange rate compared to the United States dollar has varied from less than ten to one in the mid-1950s, more than forty to one in the 1960s, and about twenty-five to one in 1992. The exchange rate as of August 2018 is NT$30.7 per US$.

Taiwan

Taiwan (, UK also ), officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a state in East Asia. Its neighbors include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. It is the most populous state and largest economy that is not a member of the United Nations.

The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China. The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC's loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction had, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and several small islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC represented China at the UN until 1971, when it lost its seat to the PRC.