CentreO Blog

You are thinking of starting a club, association or any other type of non-profit organization in Hong Kong

What are your legal incorporation options?

1. Set up a company

Quite a lot of charities and non-profit organization opt for

this. The entity follows the usual steps to register a company limited by “guarantee” instead of limited by “shares”, as there is no capital involved.

Similair to a private company, a non-profit organization has a Board of Directors, members (individuals or corporations) and a local secretary.

The process should take around one month.

When sending in the application you will be required to write up the company’s mission, vision and target audience.

Note: Subjected to Companies Registries’ approval, a non-profit organisation can be incorporated without the word “Limited” (in its company name). However, the processing time can be very ong, e.g. one year, depending on the case.

 tay tuned for our next blog post for option number two.

 

You have an established company in your own country, but think that Hong Kong presents good business opportunities?

What are you options for exploring business opportunities in Hong Kong?

1. – You can set up a brand new company
2. You can set up a branch office. And this is what we’d like to cover in a bit more detail in this blog.

If you want to conduct business in Hong Kong under the name of your existing overseas company – you can set up a representative office.

Bear in mind: if your company’s name is in clash with the name of an exiting Hong Kong company, you will have to adopt another name for your representative office.

So how to set up a representative office?

– You have to register the representative office within one month with the Company Registry and the Inland Revenue Department

– You have to state clearly where in Hong Kong the representative office is located. (So at this point you may consider using our registered office address service)

Bear in mind: with the representative office in Hong Kong you are only allowed to conduct marketing activity. You are not allowed to issue invoices or receive payments.

 

Quite a few people tend to confuse the two notions: company registration and trademark registration. Some even think they are the same and require one application.

This is not the case. Separate laws and systems regulate the registration of company names, business names and trademarks in Hong Kong.

Let’s say you want to register a business in Hong Kong.  You will have to apply at the Business Registration Office (Inland Revenue Department) to get the name of your business registered. However, this is not an indication of trademark rights.

The thing is: A Hong Kong business registration certificate or a company registration certificate does not by itself indicate that the business or company has rights to use its name or a trademark in promoting or dealing in goods and services.

Only a proper trademark registration is a guarantee of trademark rights.

Take a look at http://ipsearch.ipd.gov.hk  for registered trademarks, owners/persons licensed to use the trademarks in Hong Kong.

Need more advice on company/business/trademark registration? Give us a shout at sales@centreo.hk.

 

 

We are very happy to have Stephen Barnes, author of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook and renowned expert on visa and immigration matters in the HKSAR, to talk about the challenges faced by foreign national entrepreneurs in securing the necessary immigration permissions to join in or establish businesses here in Hong Kong.

This is a free seminar. Stephen will be spending quite a lot of time discussing one man investment visas and also explaining how the Hong Kong Immigration Department view such applications. Moreover, Stephen will also talk about dependant visa and employment visa applications, ways to improve chances of a successful application and giving detailed, practical step-by-step procedures (including all the resources you will need in your application.)

There will also be a Q&A section at the end of the presentation for your questions about your own visa.

Date: December 13^th, 2013 ( Friday)

Time: 4pm – 6pm

Location:  HKTDC SME Centre
(Ground Level, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre,
1 Expo Drive, Wan Chai, Hong Kong)

RSVP: sales@centreo.hk

Briefly about Stephen:

Long-recognized by his peers as the leading authority on Hong Kong business immigration matters, LSE law graduate Stephen Barnes published the first edition of the Hong Kong Visa Handbook on the internet in 1996.

For the 17 years since then, Stephen (aka the Hong Kong Visa Geeza) has been at the forefront of the immigration services industry in Hong Kong.

A regular guest RTHK Radio 3, Stephen answers visa questions live on air, frequently delivers Continuing Professional Development programmes to Hong Kong’s legal and accounting professions on the topic of business immigration to the HKSAR and is in demand as a subject matter expert locally and internationally.