International Business Opportunities

By handing the first residency certificate to general director of Severstal-avto Vadim Shvetsov, was inaugurated Elabuga industrial-production special economic zone in Elabuga. It is one of the six special economic zones in Russia that were legislatively created in December 2005.

Four of those, in Dubna, Zelenograd, St. Petersburg and Tomsk, were technical-innovative zones, and two of them, in Lipetsk region and Elabuga, were industrial-production zones. […]

Special economic zones are now being created faster in Russia even than in India and China, the world’s leaders in this area.
Russian Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref suggested making the land around Lake Baikal, Teletskoe Lake and the Black Sea shore special economic zones for tourism. (source)

The 2006 Shanxi (Hong Kong) Investment Attraction Fair was held in Hong Kong from July 25 to 27.
The goal was to attract investors from both home and abroad in the area of Yuncheng, the southwestern gate of North China’s Shanxi Province.

Eleven major cities and prefectures of North China’s Shanxi Province showcased their projects for overseas investment at the fair.

Zhang Maocai, secretary of the Yuncheng Committee of the Communist Party of China, told, the city has made strides in areas of agricultural processing, aluminium magnesium alloy production, precision casting, fine chemistry, modern logistics, water saving technology, disposal of garbage and sewage, as well as many advances in the cultural and tourism industries. (source)

The new fuel tax will be introduced soon in China, reflects the Chinese government’s policy of cutting down on energy consumption and pollution.  

Vice-finance minister Liao Xiaojun said, according to Xinhua news agency, government would also create tax breaks for the use of energy-saving equipment, and study lower purchase tax for cars that use less fuel and produce fewer emissions.

China’s economic and social development blueprint for 2006-2010, which was approved by the annual session of China’s parliament in March, has set a target to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent by the end of 2010. (source)

After a 11-year long process, it seems Vietnam is to join to WTO.

Erik Glenne, chairman of the ruling General Council of the 149-nation WTO, said: “World Trade Organisation negotiators aim to give Vietnam a green light to join the global body in early October”

Glenne, who also steers Vietnam’s membership talks, told a negotiating session that he aimed to secure a final deal in time for the Council session scheduled for 10-11 October.
Glenne also said that Vietnam needed to come up with more information to show how it would comply, in areas ranging from tariffs and import quotas to farm subsidies and services market liberalisation. (source)

Vietnam hopes to join the WTO before Hanoi hosts an APEC summit in November which US President George W. Bush is expected to attend.

Amid fears of inflation and problems for financial institutions, China’s government has announced new measures to make it tougher for foreigners to invest in China’s property market.

The new rules will ban foreign firms and individuals from buying homes that they do not intend to live in.

They must have lived in China for at least a year before qualifying to buy housing and property under their own name.

“Though there has always been a claim that foreign capital pushes up prices, both the government and research department lacked detailed data on this so the name register will give a clearer picture”, said China Merchants Securities analyst, Yu Zhiyong.

China has already banned the building of luxury homes on new land to make affordable property available to poorer families and its central bank is tightening scrutiny on lending to limit “excessive investment and loans growth” (source: BBC.co.uk)