On June 19th 2006, Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders and Chief Ho Hau Wah of the Macao SAR signed a double taxation exemption agreement. The agreement, which is based on the OECD model convention with respect to taxes on income and on capital, is the third of its kind concluded by Macao, which until then only had such agreements with Mainland China and with Portugal.

Under the “one country, two systems” regime currently in effect in China, the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao are entitled to conclude agreements with respect to taxation which differ from treaties concluded by Mainland China.

Belgium already has a double taxation exemption agreement with Hong Kong which entered into effect on Jan 1^st 2004.  The new agreement with Macao is part of a Belgian effort to facilitate access for Belgian companies to the Chinese market. The financial sector in particular stands to benefit from this policy.

The agreement should also help Macao enterprises to enter the European Union market through Belgium, which offers an attractive holding company regime for foreign investors.

For more information and a draft version of this agreement which is still due for ratification, please contact the author.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 10:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Belgium. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.