ICIJ TO REVEAL CHINA’S OFFSHORE SECRETS

Back on the Plus I followed the ICIJ's revelations on offshore banking -- a (mostly) legal sequestering of vast amounts of wealth (10-20% of total global financial wealth), mostly in island banking states, with the effect of avoiding legal tax obligations.

Along with the legal customers are numerous dictators, criminals, and other unsavory types.

The ICIJ are pre-announcing their latest round in this story: offshore banking from China:

But with little notice or fanfare, China has emerged as a leading source of new offshore clients. A survey last November of more than 200 bankers and other offshore professionals by the offshore services company Offshore Incorporations Limited found that China and Hong Kong had become the top two sources of new clients by country. Over the next five years, nearly three times as many respondents predicted China would be the top source of offshore clients.

“China is the most important location for client origination for business in the next five years,” said the CEO of a BVI trust company quoted in the report.

Very soon, ICIJ and our media partners around the world will expose new details of China’s hidden offshore economy. We will release our reporting on more than 20,000 offshore clients from mainland China and Hong Kong contained in our Offshore Leaks database, and relate the untold story of how offshore dealings emerged as a favored business strategy among China’s elite.

This should be interesting.

#offshorebanking #icij #money #wealth #china #inequality #banking