Vietnam has issued a decree to allow foreigners and foreign-invested companies to own land from August. Foreigners who have got a medal from the Vietnamese president for their contribution, or have invested for one or more years will be eligible. Foreigners applying for land-use certificates must have a resident card or document proving they are permitted to stay in Vietnam for over 12 months. Foreign-invested enterprises with investment certificates of over one year will be allowed to own property. (Source: Vietnam Business Forum)

Thailand has cut back by one-third the funding for a small business guarantee programme set up to ease credit constraints for local companies. The proposed funding cut back from 3 billion baht to just 2 billion will reduce the potential guarantee amount by 10 billion baht. The portfolio guarantee scheme aimed at sharing credit risks with private banks for loans extended to exporters and small businesses. Local banks have been tightening loan underwriting standards due to concerns of higher credit risk and non-performing loans. (Source: Bangkok Post)

Apple applied to use the iPhone trademark for computer software and computer hardware in China. However, Hanwang applied to register the i-phone trademark for mobile phones and video phones. The Hanwang's application was approved and the exclusive rights to the trademark were effective in 2006. Once Hanwang owned the i-phone trademark, Apple's iPhone would become an infringing product in China. If Apple's iPhone wants to enter the Chinese market, it has to change its name or seek the permission of Hanwang Technology. (Source: ChinaTechNews.com)

L'Oréal won an important legal battle against Bellure, which markets cheaper imitations of top L'Oréal perfumes, will help big companies in sectors from technology to pharmaceuticals. The case is the latest twist in the battle by brand owners to protect their products. The European court said Bellure's products enjoyed an unfair commercial advantage because of the similarity. It also ruled against Bellure's use of "smell-a-like" price lists, in which it compared the prices with L'Oréal. (Source: Financial Times)

Tate & Lyle lodged a complaint against three Chinese sucralose manufacturers, claiming the companies' products sold in U.S. infringed on its intellectual properties. JK Sucralose Inc. was not among the companies accused by Tate& Lyle, but fearing a ruling could deny its access to the U.S. market, took the initiative to join the investigation. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that the products of JK Sucralose did not infringe on the IP rights of Tate & Lyle. The whole legal process had cleared all legal obstacles for JK Sucralose's products to further tap into the vast US market. (Source: Xinhua)

Bermuda-registered trusts set up after 1 August will no longer be required to limit their lifespan to 100 years, whether they are trusts for beneficiaries or charities and non-charitable purposes. Bermuda's move will make the island more attractive to wealthy families. Under the change, trusts already in existence on 1 August will be able to apply to the Bermuda court for an extension of their trust period. (Source: WealthBriefing)

Japan will set up a fund to aid real estate investment trusts hurt by the global credit crisis. The fund will provide loans to the trusts, known as J-REITs, with the aim of reviving the real estate market. They may also purchase a portion of the REITs' debt. Japanese REITs, corporations that pool investor funds to buy real estate, purchased no properties in May, the first month without any such deals since January 2003. A preparatory panel will be established in July to discuss the fund, to which private firms may extend loans. (Source: Bloomberg)

Jersey has taken a further step towards introducing regulations of foundations. Foundations are now commonly used for wealth management, and residents of jurisdictions like the Middle and Far East are more familiar with foundations than with trusts, which do not exist in their legal systems. The regulations will permit foundations to migrate in and out of Jersey. They also provide for existing Jersey companies to convert to foundations. Jersey is the first of the Crown Dependencies to bring in a genuine foundation product. (Source: Tax-News.com)

Shanghai Pudong New Area becomes the first region in China to allow foreign equity investment to register as equity investment management enterprises. Following the pilot policy, all the foreign funded venture capital and private equity companies already established can be re-registered as foreign-funded equity investment management enterprises. All foreign financial institutions can register as foreign-funded limited liability equity investment management enterprises. The threshold of registered capital should be at least 2 million USD. (Source: People's Daily Online)

US proposed tightened rules for money-market mutual funds. Retail money funds would be required to hold at least 5 percent of their assets in cash, Treasury bonds or other instruments that could be sold for cash within a day. At least 15 percent of the retail funds' assets would have to be convertible to cash within a week. There currently are no such liquidity requirements. The liquidity requirements for money funds marketed to institutional investors would be stricter. In addition, the maximum maturity of bonds that money funds can invest in would be shortened to 60 days from the current 90 days. (Source: Yahoo)

Julia McFarlane, who made legal history when the law lords awarded her a £250,000-a-year payout from her husband, has won a 40 per cent increase in her maintenance payments. The High Court ruling means that she will share in her former husband's increased income. Her former husband's income has risen from £750,000 at the time of the divorce award to £1.1 million after tax. The case reverses the usual credit-crunch trend in which husbands apply to cut their payments to ex-wives because their income has dropped. (Source: The Times)

According to a study, 95% of parents felt confident that their children would attain their financial goals; only 5% of the young adults expressed the same level of confidence. In addition, 92% of parents considered household budgets effective, but 95% of young adults did not. However, fully 81% of parents and 71% of young adults were paying more attention to how they spent money. The economy forced 79% of parents and 61% of young adults to trim expenses. The survey included 1,000 parents of college-age children and 600 young adults. (Source: Investment News)

China has announced higher tax incentives covering more than 600 export items. Sewing machines and air conditioners are qualified for the full tax rebate of 17 percent, and items like juice, furniture and toys will be raised to 15 percent. The export tax rebate scheme will allow companies to be paid back part or all of the money in VAT for items that have gone into the production of export goods. China's exports dropped 22.6 per cent to US$91.9 billion dollars in April, the sixth straight monthly decline. (Source: China Briefing)

Dubai has frozen taxes on some services and ordered others be slashed by 20-30 percent in a bid to encourage investment in the Gulf emirate. Taxes to be cut include fees for the issuance and renewal of trade and professional licences, licences for business promotions, property ownership certificates and for converting buildings into hotels or serviced apartments and for remodeling commercial buildings. Dubai does not impose income taxes. (Source: Zawya)

German coalition agreed to make business tax cuts worth $2.8 billion over two years to help firms through the economic crisis. A draft law on the cuts included measures allowing companies to benefit from tax deductions for write-downs as well as a two million euro annual increase in the amount of interest payments firms can deduct from earnings. The planned tax relief measures would permit some two billion euros of taxes to be deferred until 2012 for companies whose annual profit is 500,000 euros or below, a limit that will be new in western Germany. (Source: Reuters)

The move follows a European Courts of Justice ruling that pension funds did not have to pay tax on the dividends they received from investments abroad if the dividends were free from tax for domestic investment funds. The court was ruling on one specific case. However, tax experts said it would open the floodgates for billions of pounds of reclaims from funds across Europe. The Netherlands has already begun to pay out claims following the ruling, and other countries are expected to follow suit soon. (Source: Telegraph.co.uk)

Iraq approved a bill to amend the investment law to allow foreign investors to buy state-owned, public and private properties. The decision comes to create a better environment for investments in the country. Foreign investors will be allowed to own state, public, and private properties, according to a special payment system for the purpose of housing projects. Iraqi investors already have the same right. The bill will also offer foreign investors the freedom to deal in the Baghdad Stock Market, and to join partnerships in private and public companies. (Source: Zawya)

China relaxed controls on overseas lending, estimating the measures could encourage as much as $30 billion of new financing for businesses to expand abroad. Companies will be allowed to lend as much as 30 percent of the value of their total equity to units abroad. The government wants to diversify foreign-exchange investments to reduce the impact of any drop in the value of dollar-denominated debt. Overseas subsidiaries won't be able to borrow more than the amount of their investment registered with State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The rules take effect on Aug. 1. (Source: Bloomberg)

According to a HSBC survey, only 25% of wealthy China's mainlanders are less flush than they were before. However, in Singapore, 56% of wealthy individuals are less flush than six months ago. Other countries and regions where the rich suffered were India, Australia, and Taiwan, where 44%, 49% and 51% of the rich lost out. The people surveyed were in the top 10% in terms of wealth in their respective countries and regions. The biggest change to spending habits was postponing the purchase of big-ticket items. (Source: FinanceAsia.com)

China revised the draft rule on its new initial public offering (IPO) mechanism in a bid to improve market fairness and better protect small investors. A single investor will be allowed to have just one stock investment account. Previous regulation allowed investors with over 5 million yuan in capital to have more than one account. Other changes included increasing the flexibility of the shares issuance mechanism, giving brokers more freedom to terminate the issuance of new shares and allocating the subscription quota among investors. The rules take effect from June.11. (Source: China Daily)

Iceland had introduced its first controlled foreign company regime. An Icelandic shareholder who owns in excess of 50% of the capital or voting rights of a non-resident company based in a low tax jurisdiction will be taxed on the income of the foreign subsidiary regardless of whether that income is distributed to them. An Iceland resident who controls a foreign entity resident in a low tax jurisdiction will be taxed in Iceland if they benefit from the company. A low tax jurisdiction is one where the company income tax rate is less than two-thirds of Iceland's 15% rate. (Source: Offshore Investment)

Brazil's central bank has tightened banking rules and forced several large international groups to close representative offices that offered private banking services illegally. The central bank has ordered the shutdown of all representative offices of banks with subsidiaries. Previously, it was common for financial services firms to have domestic subsidiaries with proper banking licenses, and representative offices that had no oversight because they were not formally registered, and were considered to be operating illegally. (Source: Reuters)

Bank of Communications will extend the reach of its wealth-management operations to second-tier cities in Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei and Shanxi provinces and Qingdao. The bank started private banking last year, targeting individuals with a net worth of at least $2 million in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Private banking is already an important and growing source of revenue for local banks. Bank of China has expanded its operations by moving into Switzerland's private banking industry. (Source: WealthBriefing)

Increasing interest in Islamic banking has benefited the sector and led many banks to extend their services and products. Nonetheless, the total number of Islamic banks is still comparatively small in comparison with conventional banks. However, the growth rate of the industry has reached 26.7 percent amongst the largest 100 Islamic banks. Islamic financial institutions are found in over 50 countries, including Algeria, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Australia, Yemen, Bahrain, the UK and the UAE. (Source: Shariah-Fortune)

Chinese Mainland will eliminate import tariffs on 28 items of HK origin and 475 items of Macao origin starting July 1. All these items are under the CEPA. Food, medicine and textiles will be the main items. HK origin textiles are now subject to a 10-percent import levy. Macao origin medicine now faces 4-percent to 6-percent import tariffs. Trade between the mainland and HK in the first five months valued at $59.59 billion, down 25.5 percent year-on-year. Trade between the mainland and Macao in the first four months stood at $670 million, down 22.5 percent. (Source: Xinhua)

【Chief Editors: Cynthia & Lillian 】

Advertisement