As much as $31.37 billion of investment from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations is parked on a 45-square-mile speck on the world map. (full story)
Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands situated between the UK and France, is a self-governing British Crown Dependency where financial services are the largest industry, employing 25 per cent of the population of 92,000.
Total deposits in Jersey-domiciled offshore banking institutions totaled £161 billion at the start of this year, of which 12 per cent came from the GCC, according to data obtained on Sunday by Zawya.
"Deposits have been more or less constant since the middle of last year," Sean Costello, head of business development for the GCC and India at Jersey Finance, told Zawya. They were valued at £169 billion in June 2010, with value eroding by £8 billion due to currency fluctuations.
Jersey Finance, a not-for-profit organization that is tasked with promoting Jersey as an International Financial Center, has opened a representative office in Abu Dhabi, close on the heels of another in Mumbai, India.
"We see a logical link between the UAE and India in terms of generating offshore investment," Costello said. "For one thing, India is the UAE's top trading partner. There is a lot of private wealth in India, some of it generated by Indian expatriates in the UAE."
Jersey Finance sees a significant outflow of investment from the UAE to offshore jurisdictions. The focus is on Jersey's expanding range of Islamic financial services, including Islamic asset management and fund domiciliation, Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), sukuk structures and Islamic private wealth management. "The primary focus remains on private wealth management," Costello said.
Geoff Cook, chief executive of Jersey Finance, said: "Both the GCC and India are key finance and business centers that we have been visiting for some years and we are delighted that we are now to have representation in both locations. This is a natural extensions of Jersey's growing links with these regions, will complement our existing representative office in Hong Kong, and are a reflection of our commitment to growing our finance industry's presence in international markets in the coming years."
Merchant families have traditionally set up trust structures in Jersey and now have the option of creating foundations. "These help family businesses create effective succession plans," he said.
Companies can also take the offshore route to initial public offerings (IPOs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity without having to worry about crippling taxation. Jersey recently introduced a Cross Border Mergers Law that will go a long way to enabling these activities.
A consultant in Dubai was, however, a little skeptical of Jersey generating large incremental business from UAE-based small firms.
"Local companies find it easier to open offices in the Jebel Ali Offshore and Ras Al Khaimah Offshore jurisdictions," Jitendra Gianchandani, chairman of audit and business consulting firm JCA International, told Zawya.
"There is an additional cost - in terms of both time and money - to opening an offshore entity that is outside the UAE. Besides, one more concern is the recent rule by the Real Estate Regulatory Authority of Dubai that non-Dubai-based firms - offshore or onshore - cannot invest in the emirate's property sector," Gianchandani said.
Costello is quick to make a distinction between "tax havens" and Jersey's "tax-neutral platform". Jersey has no capital transfer tax, capital gains tax, value-added tax, withholding taxes or wealth taxes. It is in the process of signing of a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with India.
Jersey is one of the first international financial centers to be placed on the OECD "white list" as having implemented internationally agreed tax standards. The International Monetary Fund ranked Jersey as one of the best international financial centers globally.
It is also aligned with the highest standards of the 3rd Anti-Money Laundering European Union Directive and operates to the highest standards of the Countering the Financing of Terrorism, or CFT, laws.
Jersey witnessed no banking failures during the recent global financial crisis due to its stringent regulatory standards.
Source : http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110320094051 - March 20, 2011
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