On April 17 2019, China's National Statistics Bureau announced GDP growth of 6.4% in the first quarter of 2019, the same level as for the fourth quarter of 2018. But China is nonetheless facing the slowest rate of economic growth in 30 years.

In recent years, China's venture capital (VC) industry has undergone rapid development and expansion.

In recent months, the Chinese government has been actively taking measures to stimulate the economy and attract further inbound investment.

On August 31 2018, the revised IIT Law was passed by China's Parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC). The revised law will come into full effect from January 1 2019. In advance of this, revised IIT standard personal deductions and tax rates tables have applied from October 1 2018. Following on from this, on October 20 2018 the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), released draft IIT Law implementation rules, as well as the draft guidance on itemised deductions thresholds, both for public consultation. The consultation period has now ended but the final rules are still to be released.

Following years of rapid change to China’s cross-border corporate income tax (CIT) rules and advances in enforcement effectiveness, a more measured approach has recently emerged, reflecting business environment changes and China’s evolved position within the global economy. Chris Xing, Conrad Turley, Grace Xie, and William Zhang, trace the latest trends.

Hong Kong has seen substantial changes to its tax landscape in 2018. Curtis Ng, Michael Olesnicky, John Timpany and Ivor Morris discuss Hong Kong’s tax changes for transfer pricing (TP) and research and development (R&D) aimed at enhancing Hong Kong’s competitiveness and driving its economic growth.