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Tibet Opens Up As New Domestic Tax Haven
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/657d21a0-00e4-11e3-8918-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2cmpNISU2 By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai Cayman Islands, step aside. Private equity funds looking to cut their tax bills have a new option some 3,600 metres above sea level at the foot of the Himalayas. The only catch is, they will be playing a role in China’s strategy to tighten its grip on Tibet. The government of Shannan prefecture, which lies in Tibet between Lhasa and the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, has started offering generous tax breaks and other sweeteners in an attempt to make itself a home for private equity funds and investment companies. Cities across China regularly compete for investors, but lawyers and advisers say the package of incentives available in Shannan, known as Lhoka in Tibetan, is unusually aggressive and is beginning to attract interest. The enticements for private equity funds to set up shop in Tibet are part of the Chinese government’s push to develop the region’s economy at the same time as establishing firmer control over it. Some scholars have called for a more flexible approach to the country’s restive Tibetan minority, but top leaders have vowed to take a hard line against anyone seen as agitating for independence. Of the 300,000 people in Shannan, more than 90 per cent are of Tibetan ethnicity. The investment companies that have been lured there are almost entirely managed by Han Chinese, consistent with the government’s strategy of encouraging Han to populate areas inhabited by minority groups. Tibet has set the corporate tax rate for investors at just 15 per cent, well below the national norm of 25 per cent. Companies that pay more than Rmb5m ($820,000) in tax can have as much as 40 per cent returned to them. The Tibetan government has also introduced a flat tax of 20 per cent on the incomes of some partners in private equity firms, a steep discount on the national rate where the highest bracket pays 45 per cent tax. And, unlike many other regions of China, it does not require that funds registering in Tibet invest in local companies; simply having Tibet as a domicile is enough. “Many places throughout China, especially big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, have been offering preferential policies to private equity firms. But over the past year, lots more investors have been mentioning Tibet and talking about moving there,” said Wang Jinghe, a lawyer with Dacheng law offices in Shanghai. Mr Wang said foreign private equity firms with renminbi funds in China would in theory be allowed to base themselves in Tibet but he had not heard of any doing so. Foreign visitors need special permits to enter Tibet and these can be difficult to obtain. Zero2IPO, a research and advisory firm, had no record of Chinese private equity funds establishing themselves in Tibet until last year when three registered there. Figures are not yet available for this year, but anecdotal evidence points to a growing flow towards Tibet. At the start of the year Dingxin Growth Fund established what analysts say is the biggest private equity fund to date in Tibet, a Rmb400m vehicle, though its mandate is to invest in property in other regions of China. “Every lawyer we spoke to suggested that we consider basing ourselves in Tibet,” the manager of a newly established fund told the Financial Times. Tibet is also emerging as a haven for investors who want to limit their taxes when selling off shares. Conant Optical, an eyewear maker listed on China’s venture capital stock exchange, announced on August 8 that its founder’s investment company had moved from Shanghai to Shannan in Tibet and reduced its overall stake. Golden Securities, an investment magazine, said in an article on Friday that it was “an open secret” that Tibet was the place to go to register shareholdings before selling them. The magazine said: “It’s not hard to see that Shannan has become a hotspot for listed companies that are cutting their holdings.” The government of Shannan reported that its tax revenues in the first half of 2013 reached Rmb726mn, a 110 per cent increase over the same period a year earlier. Continue reading
Wood Resources International LLC: Steady Increase In Global Trade Of Wood Chips The Past Ten Years; Japan And China Imported 83 Percent Of Traded Hard
SEATTLE, Aug 20, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The global pulp industry has increased its importation of wood chips the past ten years, reaching the second highest import levels on record in 2012, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. Japan, China, Finland and Turkey were the largest importing countries last year. Wood chips are one of the few forest products commodities that have seen a steadily increasing trend in globally traded volumes the past decade. With the exception of 2009, when global production of pulp fell by about ten percent and the demand for wood fiber was down, international trade of wood chips has increased every year from 2000 to 2011, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly. (www.woodprices.com) From 2009 to 2012, global chip trade increased by 6.5 million tons to just over 31 million tons, valued at over five billion US dollars, slightly below the all-time high reached in 2011. Much of the increase in chip imports has been because of the expansion of MDF production capacity in Turkey and due to major investments in pulp capacity in China. The top ranking of chip-importing countries has changed quite considerably the past five years. Although Japan is still, by far, the largest chip importer in the world, import volumes have declined from a record-high of almost 15 million tons in 2008 to just over 11 million tons in 2012. China, on the other hand, has gone from being a net exporter of chips less than ten years ago to become the second largest importer of wood chips in the world. With the expansion of pulp production capacity in China and the lack of domestic fiber sources, it is likely that China will surpass Japan as the world largest chip importer within 2-3 years. Japan and China are the two dominant consumers of globally traded chips. Their dominance is particularly accentuated for hardwood chips, where they imported 83 percent of the world’s total imports in 2012. Pulp mills in Finland, the third largest chip importer, have for a long time relied on residual chips from Russian sawmills with close proximity to the border and on chips from the Baltic States, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly. This trade has increased in recent years. The fourth on the import ranking list for 2012 is Turkey, which has become a major chip destination in just the past few years. It is likely that global trade of wood chips will continue to go up in the coming years for two main reasons because 1) there are limited forest resources in some of the countries which are expanding industry capacity and 2) some forest companies are making the strategic decision to diversify their supply sources and import wood chips rather than procure marginal fiber supplies locally. Global pulpwood and timber market reporting is included in the 52-page quarterly publication Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The report, established in 1988 and with subscribers in over 30 countries, tracks sawlog, pulpwood, lumber and pellet prices, trade and market developments in most key regions around the world. To subscribe to the WRQ, please go to www.woodprices.com Wood Resources International LLC (WRI), an internationally recognized forest industry-consulting firm established in 1987, publishes two quarterly timber price reports and have subscribers in over 30 countries. The Wood Resource Quarterly, established in 1988, is a 52-page market report and includes sawlog prices, pulpwood and wood chip price and market commentary to developments in global timber, biomass and forest industry. The other report, the North American Wood Fiber Review, tracks prices of sawlogs, pulpwood, wood chips and biomass in most regions of Canada and the US. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com SOURCE: Wood Resources International LLC Continue reading
COLUMN-Biomass Burners Beware New EU Oversight: Wynn
By Gerard Wynn Aug 21 (Reuters) – Utilities planning to invest in wood-fired power plants beware: the European Commission’s draft green standards for burning biomass would regulate carbon emissions from burning wood for the first time. At present, EU laws favouring green energy have led countries to pay generous subsidies for burning biomass, but in the future developers would have to meet the new standards to get those incentives. (For draft copy, see Chart 1) Greater scrutiny is appropriate, given the present assumption that burning wood produces no carbon emissions at all, under renewable energy and carbon trading laws. Biomass including wood, energy crops, food crops and waste is the main source for renewable energy in Europe, and accounts for 7 percent of all EU energy consumption. Until now, only biomass used to make liquid biofuels for road transport has been subjected to “sustainability criteria” – a check list to make sure they are environmentally friendly. The Commission will now propose to widen similar, binding criteria to biomass used to generate heat and power, which accounts for more than four times the energy of biofuels. It is only a first step, and will probably take several years to legislate. But the direction is important: the Commission’s track record is to toughen environmental regulation over time, and the case of biofuels is illustrative. As a directive, the proposals need backing from the European Parliament and member states, where the haggling will start. Academic literature suggests that there is room for argument that many existing sources of biomass would fail to meet the new criteria, with implications for biomass demand, project returns and rival low-carbon electricity technologies. *************************************** Chart 1: link.reuters.com/jep52v Chart 2: (page 238) link.reuters.com/nep52v Chart 3: (page 6) link.reuters.com/pep52v *************************************** DRIVE EU countries face a collective target to get a fifth of all energy, including power, heat and transport, from renewable sources by 2020. Member states have published details of how they will meet their 2020 goals, which the European Environment Agency (EEA) aggregated into EU-wide data. Burning biomass to produce heat and electricity would together account for 44 percent of all EU renewable energy consumption in 2020, according to the EEA report, “Renewable Energy Projections as Published in the National Renewable Energy Action Plans of the European Member States”. (Chart 2) That is far ahead of higher profile sources, such as wind power (18 percent of all renewable energy in 2020); biofuels (13 percent); and solar power (4 percent). The new regulations will therefore no doubt be bedded in softly, initially, not to upset the bloc’s entire green energy strategy. Britain, for example, has been especially active lately in supporting biomass power – faced with concern about a blackout risk due to coal plant closures. It has recently granted planning approval for 6,940 megawatts of dedicated biomass power plants, refusing just 209 MW, with a further 456 MW in the application pipeline, planning data show. Electric utilities involved in various stages of planning approval include E.ON, GDF Suez, RWE , Scottish Power. EU DRAFT The EU’s 2009 renewable energy law required the Commission to investigate possible oversight of biomass, beyond biofuels. The Commission said in 2010 that it did not then see the need for binding rules, making recommendations instead. The Commission has now had a change of heart, arguing that it is better to have a single set of binding obligations for all biomass across all 28 member states, to avoid confusion. The new rules for biomass heat and power broadly follow the existing guidelines for biofuels. They would require a minimum greenhouse gas saving of 60 percent compared with fossil fuels (including the carbon emissions from burning the fuel to generate electricity or heat); particular emissions values for biomass feedstocks and processes; and protection of forests with high conservation value. It may safeguard existing investments by applying the new criteria only to new installations, but the draft does not spell that out. DEBATE The new proposals do not list greenhouse gas savings for various types of biomass compared with fossil fuels – perhaps because that will be the most contested item. But in its note three years ago, the Commission cited its own in-house research (the Joint Research Centre) calculating savings for 20 different sources of biomass for heat and power. Regarding electricity generation from biomass, the research showed that 11 sources would fail the proposed 60 percent threshold; for heat generation, five would fail. (Chart 3) The JRC numbers show two critical factors determining greenhouse gas savings: first, the fuel used for processing the biomass, whether natural gas or less carbon-emitting wood and other forest residues. And second, the source of the biomass, whether from the EU or from tropical sources, where the latter may be primary rather than managed forest, and with higher transport emissions. No doubt, environmental and industry lobbies will haggle over the numbers. More important is the direction. The European Commission has in the past shown a bias towards making environmental legislation tougher, once it is introduced. The biofuel rules are illustrative. The EU approved biofuel consumption targets and sustainability criteria in the 2009 renewable energy law. Next month, the European parliament will vote on halving the previously agreed target for food-based biofuels, shifting support towards fuels with much lower emissions. “The Commission is of the view that in the period after 2020 biofuels which do not lead to substantial greenhouse gas savings and are produced from crops used for food and feed should not be subsidised,” the Commission says, in a policy shift on biofuels which the biomass industry should now be wary of. (Reporting by Gerard Wynn; Editing by Jeff Coelho) Continue reading
