Global Trade Alert

 On 25 February 2015, the Hong Kong government announced its 2015-16 budget.
 
Introduction of Corporate Treasury Centres
One of the policies suggested was the creation of Corporate Treasury Centres (p.28 of the budget). According to the budget speech, these CTCs would be created "to perform treasury services for their group companies, we shall amend the Inland Revenue Ordinance to allow, under specified conditions, interest deductions under profits tax for corporate treasury centres and reducing profits tax for specified treasury activities by 50 per cent".
So far, the underlying drafted bill for the CTCs has been presented in the parliament on 11 January 2016 but has yet been passed. Hence, this measure is classified as not implemented.
 
Raised state aid for film-making
The budget also encompassed additional 200 million HKD (ca. 25 million USD) for the Film Development Fund. Within this schemes, movies with production costs of no more than 10 million HKD can receive up to 2 million HKD in subsidies. The programme is meant "to boost the volume of local film production and nurture film talent".
Also, the ceiling in the Scheme for Financing Film Production was raised from 15 to 25 million HKD.
 
A state measure in the GTA database is assessed solely in terms of the extent to which its implementation affects the extent of discrimination against foreign commercial interests. On this metric, the state aid proposed here is discriminatory.