Company News

China is tightening regulations on investment by cargo owners into the country’s domestic shipping industry in a bid to avoid excess competition amid the continuing global shipping downturn.

Local governments of several Chinese coastal cities are offering further incentives to equity investment enterprises, as private equity (PE) investment has emerged as one of the most important capital-raising avenues for small and medium-sized enterprises in those areas.

Chinese authorities recently issued new regulations in a bid to encourage more loan issuance to small enterprises and improve the quality of financial services provided to them.

As part of its “structural tax reform,” China has decided to raise the tax-free thresholds for business tax (BT) and value-added tax (VAT) collection starting from today, in a bid to reduce tax burdens for enterprises, especially for small businesses.

Starting from January 1, 2011, enterprises which develop their own software products or redesign imported software products can have part of their value-added tax (VAT) refunded, said China’s State Administration of Taxation (SAT) and Ministry of Finance recently.

As a city striving to become an international shipping center, Shanghai is brewing a complete package of favorable policies for its shipping-related industries. The new policies are hoped to significantly bring down shipping companies’ tax liabilities to levels similar to the shipping tax burdens seen in Hong Kong, experts say.