Recent China blog commentary
There has appeared over the past several days misinformed commentary on several China blogs concerning China Briefing, Chris Devonshire-Ellis, and Dezan Shira & Associates. While this remains in the public domain, and while we have our concerns regarding the motivating reasons for posting some of this material, we would like the set the record straight concerning our business and its management as follows:
China Briefing
China Briefing Media Ltd is a Hong Kong Ltd company, publishing under Hong Kong ISBN’s, and has been providing news and articles on China law, tax and operational issues. It was founded by Chris Devonshire-Ellis in 1999, and is now in its ninth year of operations.
We produce a complimentary monthly magazine, China Briefing, in six different languages – English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. 35,000 hard copies are printed and distributed gratis each month across China, while 250,000 international subscribers obtain the pdf electronic version globally. We also publish and continue to publish a series of constantly updated regional and technical legal and tax guidebooks, and have done so since 2003. The currently available volumes can be seen here.
The China Briefing Daily News facility was originally set up as a blog to complement our existing magazine and book titles. However, due to concerns over the quality of much of the blogging content on matters of China, and over impartiality, we upgraded this facility to a daily news service, albeit one where people can leave moderated comments, in November last year.
In 2007, to provide support to the Dezan Shira & Associates regional expansion, China Briefing diversified its titles and began publishing legal and tax material in India and Vietnam, as well as an Asian emerging markets website, 2point6billion.com. Material for the magazines, books and news are provided by our in-house team of investigative journalists, with legal and tax clarification over corporate issues coming from professional staff with Dezan Shira & Associates offices across China.
China Briefing also holds regular China law and tax update seminars on a national basis, dealing with topics as diverse as HR law to Individual income tax. These are promoted regionally to local subscribers in the city where they are held, and attended by other law and tax practices in addition to multinationals. A quarterly series of networking events in various cities are also held, with the most recent being in Beijing and Shanghai, and are well attended by local China Briefing subscribers.
To access these additional services, readers must be online subscribers, however this is complimentary and can be obtained from the main website.
The Managing Editor for China Briefing is Andy Scott, based in Shanghai.
Dezan Shira & Associates
The firm was first established with offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and was founded by Chris Devonshire-Ellis in 1992. Today, the China practice has eight offices, one in Hong Kong, and is a licensed foreign direct investment and tax consultancy within China, comprising of two divisions. These are tax and financial services, handling pre-investment tax advise, ongoing tax compliance matters, and financial due diligence, and a legal services division, providing tax law, incorporation and legal due diligence advice. The firm is retained by some 1,700 multinational clients from some 65 countries, with the bulk of clients coming from the US and Europe. The firm employs over 50 foreign and Chinese lawyers in its legal services division, with a further 100 personnel in tax, accounting and audit. Full service offices are located in Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, and Hong Kong.
The Managing Partner for the firm in China is Alberto Vettoretti, while Sabrina Zhang is the National Tax Partner. Dezan Shira & Associates are members of the Leading Edge Alliance, with combined global annual revenues for 2007 of US$1.7 billion.
In early 2007 the firm opened three offices in India, with another two being established in February 2008. These are located in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkota, Bangalore and Chennai. Additionally in March 2008 the practice opened two further offices in Vietnam, in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. An office in Singapore is currently planned and will open subject to regulatory approval by the authorities in the autumn of 2008.
Chris Devonshire-Ellis remains the firm’s Senior Partner, and is responsible for the development of the practice internationally. He has over 16 years of China business management, legal establishment and foreign direct investment experience, and regularly contributes to China Briefing, as well as to our other titles. Chris has written the “Legal Ease” column for the Chinese Communist Party business magazine Beijing Review for the past six years, and has appeared in many other newspapers, magazines and TV internationally, including the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Economist, The South China Morning Post, China Daily, China Law & Practice and many other similar titles. He remains a sought after public speaker and is a member of the American Club and the Capital Club in Beijing in addition to the Royal Overseas League in London.
He is currently engaged spending time in both China and India, overseeing the development of our practice’s India offices, and promoting trade and investment between China and India. This has proven successful, with Dezan Shira & Associates China handling work for Indian clients such as Mittal, Reliance and Tata, and Dezan Shira & Associates India handling work now for large Chinese manufacturers establishing manufacturing and distribution facilities there. The firm also has a growing presence handling work for multinationals in India, especially from the United States and Europe, and has held several successful 2point6billion.com investment seminars in China and India.
Chris is also currently developing our new offices in Singapore, as well as working on the launch of our soon to be unveiled legal and tax reference website, communisttaxlawyer.com, which will feature a directory of over 60 communist and ex-communist countries, their FDI legal and tax regulations, and related information websites, blogs and details of in-country firms handling investment work within them.
We trust this sets the record straight about who is who within our organization, its background, personal responsibilities of people within the firm, and our actual capabilities and resources.
Other inquiries or questions concerning our China or other business operations may be directed to Sam Woollard, National Marketing Director.
