A subsidiary or daughter company is owned and controlled by another company, called the holding or parent company. Subsidiary companies are very common in the business environment and most multinational corporations operate via these structures. In comparison to creating divisions of a single company, incorporation of subsidiaries as separate legal entities has various benefits. For example, a subsidiary company is required to conform to the tax, liability and other regulations of its home country, not the country of the holding company. For example, a subsidiary company can sue and be sued separately from the holding company and its obligations will not normally be transferred to its parent.

Singapore has managed to position itself as the preferred jurisdiction for businesses of any size seeking to operate in Asia. Singapore’s business environment is favourable to foreign investors due to rather liberal requirements and various benefits, such as a strategic location, the availability of a skilled, multilingual workforce, smart immigration policies, excellent intellectual property protection and an efficient legal system. Among other advantages, Singapore’s taxation policies and tax treaties are certainly worth pointing out and will be discussed further below. More specific benefits of subsidiary incorporation in Singapore include:

Paid-up capital can be in the same currency as that used by the holding company (easier accounting procedure)
Freedom to determine the company’s fiscal year, making it possible to match the accounting dates of the holding company (easier accounting procedure)
The subsidiary’s name can be different from that of the holding company
Freedom to repatriate all profits away from Singapore
Main basic requirements
During the formation of a subsidiary company, at least one local director needs to be appointed who is a Singaporean citizen or permanent resident or who holds an employment pass. Upon incorporation, a company secretary must be appointed who is also resident in Singapore. The minimum paid-up capital for a subsidiary company is 1 SGD, and this can be 100% owned by the parent company. A subsidiary in Singapore must have an office — either commercial premises or a home office — and statutory records need to be kept there.

To form a subsidiary, the following documents are required:

The holding company’s certificate of incorporation
Proof of the holding company’s directors and current registered address
Authorisation of signature on behalf of the holding company
Copies of the subsidiary directors’ passports
Signed consent to act as directors
Registered address for the subsidiary
Articles of association and memorandum for the subsidiary
Possible applications
In addition to the various benefits of having a subsidiary company in Singapore, there are circumstances when it is crucial to opt for a subsidiary rather than a branch office or simply a new division. The main purpose of a subsidiary is to allow local or foreign companies to expand their operations. But what if you want to expand your business in a completely different direction to that of your current business? While a branch office is an extension of the parent company and is therefore only allowed to carry out activities which are in line with the purpose of that company, a subsidiary is allowed to perform any activities as long as these are stated at the time of its incorporation.

Taxation for subsidiary companies in Singapore
Singapore’s tax system is considered simple and investor-friendly. The corporate tax rate does not exceed 17% and there is no tax on capital gains or dividends. All foreign-sourced income is exempt from tax as long as it has been subject to tax in another country. In addition, Singapore has an extensive list of double tax agreements (DTAs) with over 70 countries around the world, which allows investors to avoid double taxation. This extensive DTA network, together with 0% tax on capital gains and dividends, makes Singapore a smart and financially friendly choice for the incorporation of a subsidiary company.

Know Your Client, also known as KYC, refers to numerous due diligence activities performed not only by financial institutions but also other regulated companies in order to retrieve any relevant information about their clients before and in the course of doing business with them. Every financial and business entity is responsible for adopting and implementing various KYC procedures and regulations.

Know Your Client policies typically include procedures like:
Collecting and analysing a person's identity information and looking into the real beneficiary of the company and business accounts
Name-matching with lists of political parties (searching for Politically Exposed persons or PEPs)
Determining a client's likelihood of committing money laundering, terrorist financing, identity theft or other offences
Creating expectation profiles based on a client's transactional behaviour, and monitoring any deviations from this profile
Anti-money laundering, also known as AML, is a set of laws, regulations and other procedures designed to eliminate the practice of generating income from illegal activity. Typically, money launderers hide the real source of their income through a series of steps that make it look like money derived from illegal activities was earned legitimately. Anti-money laundering policies aim to help institutions spot and look into possible cases.

Globalisation and the global information exchange system
KYC and AML policies are designed to offer solutions for eliminating the numerous risks deriving from the fact that financial institutions do not know their clients. On the other hand, these same policies also have a tendency to conflict with a private individual's general expectations of confidentiality and privacy.

With the rapid advance of globalisation over the last few decades, security concerns have become a top priority, not only for national regulators, but for the international community more generally. In response to rising concerns over money laundering, an intergovernmental organisation called the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) was established in 1989 during the G7 summit in Paris, and shortly afterwards it issued recommendations on money laundering and terrorism financing. All the recommendations are intended to be put into action at a national level through legislation and other legally binding measures. In addition to the Know Your Client and Anti-money laundering procedures described above, FATF recommendations require states to co-operate internationally and exchange relevant information in investigations.

A new international standard, called AEOI or the automatic exchange of information, will come into force in participating countries to ensure that tax authorities exchange data relating to taxpayers' bank accounts. The main goal of AEOI is to make tax evasion impossible. AEOI stipulates that banks must report information about bank and safekeeping accounts to the domestic tax authorities. This information is then exchanged with the tax authorities in AEOI partner countries.

Possible solutions to protect confidentiality
Some jurisdictions consider revealing the name of an account holder to be a criminal act. The privacy of a bank's clients is protected by law and regarded as being similar in nature to the confidentiality between doctor and patient or lawyer and client. Although privacy is seen as a fundamental principle and greatly protected in these jurisdictions, law enforcement access can be granted to the relevant information in the context of a criminal investigation.

However, if no criminal accusation has been made, offshore banks offer the maximum possible confidentiality and security. Offshore banking jurisdictions are designed to protect assets from domestic litigation and other civil matters, such as contested estates or divorce. An even higher level of confidentiality and anonymity is available through other asset-holding vehicles — for example, international business companies and offshore trusts.

Germany is a social market economy with a large capital stock, a highly qualified workforce, a high level of innovation and low levels of corruption. It is the largest economy in Europe and the fourth largest nation in the world in terms of nominal GDP. In addition to the intelligent economy and productive market structure, Germany also offers investment opportunities in its real estate segment.

What influences the German real estate market?
The volatility of the real estate market can be explained by numerous macroeconomic and social factors in the country. Due to the zero interest rate policy of the European Central Bank, mortgage interest rates remain at record lows and offer historically favorable financing conditions. In addition, the quantitative easing (QE) policy being pursued by the ECB is leading to higher liquidity, increasing investment pressure as investors seek potential investment opportunities with above-average returns in relatively safe sectors. QE is also weakening the euro, making the German real estate market even more attractive to investors from outside the eurozone.

New projects and construction activities lag far behind the growing demand, which leads to rising property prices. The German Property Index (GPI), which measures the return on all real estate investments in Germany, reached 14.7% in 2016, a record level since German reunification. The demand for high-quality real estate is increasing due to the demographic and overall economic development in Germany – ongoing urbanization and growing metropolitan areas. Germany is experiencing a positive reversal in birth rates and other demographic factors. The birth rate rose from 1.39 to 1.50 per woman between 2011 and 2015. In addition, Germany has a persistent migration surplus, which can partially compensate for the demographic imbalance.

Commercial real estate, especially office space, is also in high demand due to record employment and the low unemployment rate, and is also benefiting from increasing purchasing power and high consumer spending. Logistics and warehouse real estate is crucial for growing businesses and is therefore in high demand due to the increase in wholesale and retail trade. Below you will find an overview of the most important sectors of the German real estate market.

Residential real estate
The residential real estate market was able to recover from the financial crisis and market stagnation in the years after 2009. Residential property construction projects have risen steadily in recent years, resulting in around 277,000 completed residential units in 2016. 2015 Residential real estate With a total investment of EUR 170 billion, 60% of the total construction volume in Germany went into construction. Despite a significant increase in building permits issued (375,400 permits issued in 2016) and a record level of completed projects, demand still significantly exceeds the volume of completed housing projects.

Future prospects call for applications for new building permits to increase to 272,000 units per year by 2020 and further slow down to 230,000 units per year by 2030. Meanwhile, the number of residential properties could increase to 380,000 units in the short term due to increased immigration.

However, the demand for residential real estate differs greatly from region to region. In some regions, the gap between demand and supply could close soon, especially in eastern Germany. In some regions, especially in prosperous metropolitan areas, the available housing units will remain very scarce.

Along with the insufficient supply, the asking rents have risen accordingly. In large cities in particular, the trend towards rising rents is quite dynamic. For example, the annual growth rate of residential rents in Germany has been around 1.7% since 2004. In the meantime, rents in Berlin and Munich have risen by 3.9% and 3.5% annually, respectively. Both cities recorded an annual growth in purchase prices of 6% in this real estate sector.

Office Properties
Similarly as residential properties, also office properties’ market is in a good and forward-looking shape mainly due to positive migration balance and historically low unemployment rates. In 2016, approximately 3.9 million square meters of office space was rented in the top 7 cities in Germany. This indicates a growth of 12% in comparison to the previous period. A particularly dynamic development was observed in Frankfurt, Cologne and Stuttgart with growth rates ranging between 25% and 48.4%. Meanwhile, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Munich and Berlin have experienced a cool-down in floor-space turnover in comparison to previous years.

The overall vacancy rate of office properties has decreased due to several factors: a dynamic demand, a slow expansion of floor space and high pre-letting rates. Across the top 7 cities mentioned above, the vacancy rate decreased by 0.7% points to 4.9%. In the top 7 real estate locations in Germany, the prime office rents range between 21 EUR/m2 and 37.50 EUR/m2 giving an attractive potential for investment return. This especially applies to Berlin, where rents have increased by more than 17% in comparison to 2015 reaching 28.7 EUR/m2. Currently, the highest office rents are in Frankfurt and Munich (37.50 EUR/m2 and 35 EUR/m2 accordingly).

Local investors retain the dominant market position accounting for around 60% of the total transaction activity in office property market. Meanwhile, foreign investors account for approximately two fifths (or 20.9 billion EUR) of the transaction volume.

Tokelau is considered a developing country. A nation's stage of development is determined by a number of factors including, but not limited to, economic prosperity, life expectancy, income equality and quality of life. As a developing country, Tokelau may not be able to provide consistent social services to its citizens. These social services can include things like public education, reliable health care, and law enforcement. Citizens of developing countries can have a lower life expectancy than citizens of developed countries. Each year, Tokelau exports about US$0 billion and imports about US$0 billion. 5% of the country's population is unemployed. The total number of unemployed in Tokelau is 66. The country's Gini index is 38.39. Tokelau experiences good equality. The majority of citizens in Tokelau fall within a narrow income bracket, although some cases can show significant differences. Tokelau has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.473. Tokelau has a lower mean HDI score. This suggests that the majority of citizens will struggle to live a worthwhile life due to flawed economic and social systems.

Currency
The currency of Tokelau is the New Zealand Dollar. The plural form of the word New Zealand dollar is dollars. The symbol used for this currency is $ and is abbreviated as NZD. The New Zealand dollar is divided into cents; there are 100 in a dollar.

Credit rating
Creditworthiness is the degree to which international investors trust a country to pay off debt and honor the country's lending commitments. There is no information about the creditworthiness of Tokelau.

Central bank
In Tokelau, the institution that manages the state's currency, money supply and interest rates is called the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

National debt
Tokelau's national debt has not yet been calculated.

Control information
Personal income tax ranges from 5% to 25% depending on your specific situation and income level.

Finances
The total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) valued as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in Tokelau is US$0.0015 billion. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita in Tokelau was last recorded at $0 million. PPP in Tokelau is considered below average compared to other countries. Below-average PPPs indicate that citizens in this country find it difficult to buy local goods. Local goods can include food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, personal hygiene, essential furnishings, transportation and communications, laundry, and various types of insurance. Countries with below-average purchasing power parities are dangerous locations for investments. To learn more about financial information, click Finances of Tokelau.

Industry
Important industries of the country are small businesses for copra production, wood processing, braided handicrafts, stamps, coins, fishing. The total labor force of Tokelau is 689 people, with 5% of the country's population being unemployed. The total number of unemployed in Tokelau is 66.

Confidus Solutions list of banks in Latvia contains 10 banks.

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Swedbank
SEB Bank
DNB Bank
PrivatBank
ABLV Bank
Luminor Bank
Baltic International Bank
Citadele Bank
LPB Bank
BlueOrange Bank