Hong Kong signs investment agreement with ASEAN

HONG KONG - A new investment agreement between Hong Kong and ASEAN provides investment protection and guarantees transfers and returns. The agreement is effective from June 17.

In a Client Alert, lawyers Baker McKenzie say that is known as the Agreement on Investment among the Governments of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (AHK-IA) introduces investment protection and transfer guarantees for investments between Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, and Thailand and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong and ASEAN cross-border investors will receive investment safeguards in the form of fair and equitable treatment and full protection and security, compensation for expropriation, and compensation for losses and damages relating to armed conflict, civil strife, revolution, or a state of emergency.

Cross-border transfers related to covered investments will be allowed 'freely and without delay'.  

But to take advantage of the AHK-IA, party investors must receive investment approval from the appropriate authority for their investment.

Covered investments include property, shares, stocks, bonds and debentures, intellectual property rights, claims to money or to any contractual performance, and business concessions with financial value.

www.bakermckenzie.com (ATI).