China has agreed to join the international effort by the G20 leading economies to combat tax evasion by signing an agreement to share tax records, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Wednesday.
China’s decision means that all G20 countries now have agreed to cooperate on tax avoidance, a priority set by global leaders to address the causes of the 2007-2009 financial crisis and to help combat corruption.
The OECD, the global economic policy forum, said that Chinese Tax Commissioner Wang Jun (王軍) will sign the convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters in Paris next week.
China recently has ramped up its efforts to crack down on corruption in the world’s second-largest economy, arresting public officials on bribery charges, banning their elaborate expense-account dinners and investigating corporate activities.
Tax avoidance is frequently linked to corruption. Illicit funds, earned from crime, corruption and tax evasion, often are moved out a country via tax havens and by using shell companies.
Sharing tax information can be an important tool in helping to track these funds.
Global Financial Integrity, a financial watchdog group, has estimated that more money flows out of China from illicit financial activity than any other developing country.
Its latest report estimates the losses between 2000 and 2011 at US$3.79 trillion.
China has yet to join the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention, the international standard for how to combat graft of public officials in foreign business transactions.
Drago Kos, the OECD’s incoming anti-graft chief, said in a Thomson Reuters Foundation interview that getting the biggest developing economies on board will be a priority for his tenure.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day