The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Germany to negotiate deal with Singapore against tax evasion
- Greek austerity talks to go on after eurogroup
- U.S. House Intelligence panel head blackballs China's Huawei
| Germany to negotiate deal with Singapore against tax evasion Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:19 AM PDT BERLIN: Germany will start talks with Singapore next week on a deal to prevent its citizens from evading taxes by shifting their money to the Asian state, a government source said on Saturday. During a visit to Asia next week, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will fly to Singapore, the region's prominent wealth management centre, to try to negotiate an agreement with the government, the source said. According to media reports, there are signs German tax dodgers are shifting funds to Singapore from Switzerland, which signed a tax deal with Germany earlier this year. The source said hopes were high that Singapore would agree to give German authorities information on assets held in the country by wealthy German citizens as it had stressed earlier this year it did not tolerate tax evasion. "We are acting on the assumption that Singapore is pursuing a clean money strategy," the source said. Singapore's central bank said in August it had warned banks last year to guard against funds being transferred into the island state to evade taxation elsewhere, with an eye to new tax treaties being implemented in Europe. It did not tolerate such flows, and Singapore was cooperating with other countries to prevent abuse of its financial system, a spokeswoman for the Monetary Authority of Singapore said. Switzerland and Germany hammered out a new deal in April to confront tax evasion, but the centre-left SPD opposition has said it will block the pact in the upper house of parliament as it is too lenient on tax dodgers. One of the SPD's criticisms has been that, as it stands, the agreement would allow people to evade taxes by taking their money out of Switzerland before the deal takes effect. - Reuters |
| Greek austerity talks to go on after eurogroup Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:13 AM PDT ATHENS: Greece is making progress in agreeing new austerity measures with its international lenders but needs another two weeks to wrap up a deal, a senior government official said on Saturday. The comments confirmed that Athens would fail to clinch a pact on almost 12 billion euros of savings before euro zone finance ministers meet on Monday, but both sides indicated progress was being made. The cuts are necessary to keep the Greek budget within the targets set by the European Union and International Monetary Fund under the terms of the latest multi-billion-euro bailout staving off bankruptcy. "There is good progress in the talks with the troika, there is convergence," a senior finance ministry official, who declined to be named, said after talks in Athens between Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and officials from the troika of lenders - the EU, IMF and European Central Bank. "We do not expect to have agreed on something before the eurogroup meeting," the official said, adding that talks would continue for another two weeks. Greece's coalition government is trying to spare angry Greeks even deeper wage and pension cuts after five consecutive years of recession that have driven unemployment to record levels and slashed household incomes. The official told reporters that Athens hoped for a statement from euro zone finance ministers on Monday confirming progress in the talks. "This positive statement will be the signal for talks to continue ... next week and the week after that," he said. Speaking in Riyadh on Saturday, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said talks on the fiscal chapter of Greece's program had been "very good and productive". The talks also cover structural reforms, financing and debt sustainability. EU Commissioner for Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn also spoke of progress, saying negotiations had "moved on" and that agreement was possible in the coming days. - Reuters |
| U.S. House Intelligence panel head blackballs China's Huawei Posted: 06 Oct 2012 06:10 AM PDT WASHINGTON: U.S. companies should avoid doing business with China's Huawei, the world's No. 2 maker of telecommunications gear, for fear its equipment could open doors for spying, the head of the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee said. "If I were an American company today ... and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property; if you care about your consumers' privacy and you care about the national security of the United States of America," Chairman Mike Rogers said. The Michigan Republican, a former FBI special agent, made his comments to the CBS television program 60 Minutes to be broadcast on Sunday. Excerpts provided by the program Friday did not spell out any evidence to back up Rogers' concerns. On Monday, the Intelligence panel will release the findings of a nearly year-long investigation of the alleged security risk, both from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and China's ZTE Corp. ZTE is also a Shenzhen, China-based telecommunications gear maker, the world's fifth-ranking. The excerpts released by 60 Minutes did not include specific references to ZTE. It was not immediately clear whether Rogers and the committee were blackballing ZTE as well. "One of the main reasons we are having this investigation is to educate the citizens in business ... in the telecommunications world," Representative C.A. Ruppersberger of Maryland, the panel's top Democrat, told the program. The committee believes allowing Huawei to build and maintain large swaths of America's telecommunications infrastructure opens a door for the Chinese government to spy on the U.S. government and engage in industrial espionage, 60 Minutes said. Huawei said in response that it was "globally trusted and respected," doing business in almost 150 markets with more than 500 operator customers, including nationwide carriers across every continent except Antarctica. "The security and integrity of our products are world proven," William Plummer, a company spokesman in Washington, said in an email. "Those are the facts today. Those will be the facts next week, political agendas aside." The efforts of Huawei and ZTE in the United States have been stymied by U.S. concerns over allegedly mounting Chinese economic espionage, especially in cyberspace. Huawei has marketed its network equipment in the United States since last year and has sold to a range of small- to medium-sized carriers nationwide, particularly in rural areas. It has marketed mobile phones through a broader range of U.S. carriers, for the last four years. Both Huawei and ZTE have rejected charges that their expansion in the United States poses a security risk and argue they operate independently of the Chinese authorities. - Reuters |
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