March 15, 2012
Singapore Seeks To Be Asian Bullion Hub With Tax Free Gold and Silver
By GoldCore:
"Another sign of Asia's increasing importance in the global gold market is news that Singapore is planning to boost its share of global gold trade sevenfold after scrapping taxes on gold, silver and platinum bullion.
This is the aim of the International Enterprise Singapore, the city state's external trade agency according to Bloomberg.
Currently just 2% of world gold demand flows through Singapore and Singapore is aiming to increase that to 10% to 15% over the next five to 10 years, Kathy LAI, assistant chief executive officer at IE Singapore, said.
Singapore will exempt investment grade gold, silver and platinum from the 7% goods and services tax to turn the country into a bullion trading hub, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told parliament in his budget speech on February 17. The change, which takes effect on Oct. 1, will apply to gold of 99.5 percent purity, silver of 99.9 percent purity and platinum of 99 percent purity.
"Most other financial centers consider gold as a financial asset so few place any kind of tax on precious metals and we discovered that it was an impediment," said IE Singapore's LAI. "We noted that gold demand increasingly is dominated by Asian consumers and investors and we feel that this is something we may have missed out on."
Asia doesn't have a so-called gold hub, where there's a critical mass of traders and storage, like in London and Zurich, said LAI.
"Vis-a-vis Dubai, we are a more credible financial center, vis-a-vis Hong Kong, we are seen as not part of China and therefore more neutral," she said.
This is another step towards price discovery in the precious metals market being related to supply and demand of the physical metal and not the MACHINATIONS of banks and hedge funds MANIPULATING the paper gold market on the COMEX"... - HOSSA..!
SOURCE / LINK / QUELLE dieser Kampfes-Ansage:
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Gold kauft den Wagen; Silber füttert die Pferde & füllt Dir den Tank...