Search Results for: hong Kong

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; KARRYN MILLER, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

IT almost seems commonsense to say that an industry providing such a human product as clothing has to take account of cultural sensibilities in target markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE has been an increase in the proportion of counterfeit shoes seized in Europe made in China – up to 93.4% of all seizures in 2008 – the European Commission has revealed. This was up from 79.6% the previous year.…

BY WANG FANGQING

GONE are the days when it was only rich developed country markets which punished cigarette sales with high duties. In the past six months, the biggest (and gloomiest) news for China’s cigarette manufacturers has been the change in consumption tax (an excise tax) – it was raised as high as 56% depending on the tobacco product, along with an additional 5% ad valorem wholesale price-based tax.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FACED with a global recession caused partly by commercial financial crime, governments have been pushed into taking action against tax evasion in recent months by ending the practice of banking secrecy. Is it the end of the road for tax havens as protected jurisdictions where illicit transactions can hide?…

BY MARK GODFREY

BUSINESS remains slow in Jinghai, a slice of industrial land a couple of hours east of Beijing designated as one of China’s key recycling belts. Business was brisk here up to October 2008, the date given locally as the beginning of a savage dip in demand for recyclables.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL convention imposing environmental health rules on tanker and other ship recycling was expected to be approved by a diplomatic conference in Hong Kong May 11-15. This International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships was drafted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to control this notoriously dangerous industry.…

BY MARK GODFREY

IN terms of suicides by migrant workers, "Hong Kong risks becoming another Gulf," claims their representative in the territory. Comparing reported incidents with accidental deaths and suicides by workers in Gulf Arab countries, Mia Sumiati, a coordinator of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Organisation (IMWO) in Hong Kong, noted an increase in suspicious deaths or proven suicides amongst the 140,000 strong Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR cigarette smuggling boom is being reported in Ireland by customs teams, with a record 135.2 million cigarettes being seized last year, almost twice the amount seized in 2007. Of these, 56.82 million were counterfeits, the country’s Sunday Independent newspaper has reported.…

BY MARK GODFREY

The new planned G20 rules on financial stability and accounting will have less impact on mainland China than they will on Hong Kong, said Robert Agnew, CEO of Matrix Services, a consultancy advising financial firms on pan-China deals: "Mainland China has gotten its accountancy rules into line with global norms, and it now uses a limited form of fair value accounting.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THE EMPTINESS of the Giordano store in the departures terminal at massive Baiyun International Airport outside the southern Chinese megapolis of Guangzhou suggests hard times for Hong Kong’s most vaunted and ambitious apparel retailer. This is the capital of wealthy Guangzhou province after all, the manufacturing base for most of Hong Kong’s garment firms.…