“Commercial Awareness Is Global.”
By: Ainsley Brown There are no more countries left on the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Tax haven black list. Does this mean that the black list is no more? No, not exactly. The OECD has removed Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco from its black list of non-compliant tax havens. The three countries were the last remaining on the
By: Ainsley Brown UBS, the world´s largest wealth manager, has found itself embroiled in a diplomatic row between Washington and Bern. At issue is the interpretation of the current US-Swiss double taxation treaty and at stake is the newly inked, yet to be ratified, revised US-Swiss double taxation treaty. Does the future of the revised US-Swiss double taxation treaty depend
By: Ainsley Brown The between tax evasion and legitimate tax planning is a fine one indeed. This line is now set to get even thinner. How? Before I get into the specifics of this a little background is in order. The issues of cross-border taxation are as old as commerce itself, as are the issues of tax evasion and tax
By Charles Wanguhu In early 90’s Nike suffered a huge backlash from the revelations of child labour in use in its factories abroad there was a drive to ensure that clothing was environmentally sound. In early 2000 a push for carbon footprint labelling ensured that the consumer was conscious of the effect of their consumption habits on the climate. In
Government Procurement contracts is a very powerful, and yet often untapped, policy leaver to drive economic growth and development.
Countries enter agreements between each other all the time for a variety of things. A burning question businesses frequently ask is how do they impact (positive or negative) me? For an Economic Engagement Network: the value is in the connections. In order to leverage this network and create value or mitigate any negatives for your business requires a total mindset change. Rather than viewing these agreements in isolation and disconnected I invite you to start viewing these agreements as networks and platforms that support global value chains.
There are principally three reasons why Jamaica changed its Zone Regime from Free Zone to SEZ and these are 1.WTO compliance, 2. IMF Agreement and 3.Improving Jamaica’s global competitiveness.
An Economic Engagement Network is about how nations can improve their competitiveness by finding and creating value through the complex interplay between the various agreements (e.g. trade, investment treaties, double taxation agreements, air service agreements, standards mutual recognition, etc.) that they enter between each other.
Jamaica’s SEZ Regime, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic has become an island of calm in a turbulent ocean. The SEZ Regime represents for Jamaica’s economic independence a policy instrument that creates safe haven for near shore manufacturing, logistics, distribution, outsourcing services, etc ready to serve the 1-billion-person market in the Americas and beyond.
In December in 2020 I published an article in Jamaica’s oldest and largest newspaper, the Gleaner, under the title: COVID Has Made Every Firm A Safety Business. What follows is the original article with bonus materials. “For safety is not a gadget but a state of mind.” Eleanor Everet I spotted and read an article in May of this year