China CSR Watch

By China CSR Watch (www.csrcsr.com)

In June 2007, Greenpeace announced that its research has found GE food produced by Japanese food producer Glico and German retail chain Metro. The environmental group criticized the two companies for having a double-standard policy, and demanded them to adopt a non-GE policy in China. Both companies adopt a non-GE policy in their own countries. Glico publicly announced its global non-GE policy the next day.

This was not the first time for Greenpeace to target multinational companies in China on GE double standard charges.

In 2003, Greenpeace accused Nestle of GE violation and consumer sued Nestle subsequently. In 2005, Greenpeace’s publicity campaign on Kraft Food’s GE products in China has pushed Kraft to adopt a non-GE policy in mainland China starting from January 2007.

However, most processed food products are not required to label their GE ingredients under the current Chinese regulation.

Sources:
Green Peace: http://www.greenpeace.org/china/en/press/release/gp-found-gefood
National Business Today: http://finance.sina.com.cn/xiaofei/puguangtai/20050316/01531432293.shtml
Sina.com: http://finance.sina.com.cn/focus/wqzjy/index.shtml
Biosino.org: http://www.biosino.org/law/law59.htm

By China CSR Watch (www.csrcsr.com)

According to the new Income Tax Law of The People’s Republic of China for Enterprises to be effective on January 1st 2008, China will four-fold its tax deduction for CSR donations from 3% to 12% of the annual profit. In other words, up to 12% of the profit is tax free as long as it is donated to CSR.

“In the first draft of the law, the tax deduction for CSR donation has been set to 10%. This revised final version listens to our feedback and added another 2%. It will surely help the CSR work in China, especially our education industry,” said Mr. WANG Xiaocun, a Chinese lawmaker and head of Zhejiang Industrial University.

The previous rate of 3% was set in the early version of the law issued in 1993.

The new tax law coming next year will also unify the income tax rate between domestic companies and foreign-invested companies to 25%. To attract foreign capitals, China used to grant foreign-invested companies huge tax incentives at around 15% while many domestic companies shield the tax burden at 33%.

Sources (in Chinese):
China Youth Daily: http://business.sohu.com/20070704/n250899398.shtml
China philanthropy Times: http://news.sohu.com/20070320/n248850993.shtml
China Education Daily: http://news.e21.cn/html/2007/jygj/163/20070317090031_11740932311585814045.htm