New Rules Of China Co. Set Up Generally speaking, to set up Reps. Office/ branch/ subsidiary/ factory under the name of offshore parent company, the documents must be notarized by local embassy. According to the news released from Beijing, there is a new regulation that affects foreign investors greatly since May 2006 in China. When you are using your offshore company to set up a factory, company or Reps., all documents of that foreign company must be notarized by local Notary Public, Foreign Affairs and China Embassy. Vietnam government also requires foreigners or companies to have their documents notarized by local embassy and Vietnam embassy.

There is a big difference that depends on where the foreign companies are registered. Such as offshore registered in Panama, due to their diplomatic relationships with Taiwan, then there is no China embassy based in Panama. Although you could have Panama IBC documents notarized by China embassy based in USA or Mexico, your documents may be denied or to be postponed for months because of too few cases that they had taken before. So if you have decided to make investment in China, make sure that your foreign (offshore) company is based in a nation where there's a China embassy. You'd better choose a Seychelles/ Brunei offshore company where there's a China embassy which will make the notarization much easier.

Some small management agents (offshore co. agents) based in Taiwan or Bangkok need to ask the middle agents in HK or Singapore, then the middle agents will seek help from final registered agents in Brunei, BVI or Cayman. Besides, they don't know what documents should be notarized, and this is going to take you much longer time than you think, which might be 2~6 months. It means that your investment (factory / company/ Reps.) in Usually, the final registered agents do not have a physical office in London, and they have to ask for help from a law firm or CPA in London. Then the process will take 1 month just to request a quotation! The documents of offshore company for BVI & Cayman should go through 3 steps of notarization. First is to be notarized by Notary Public in BVI & Cayman. Second is through Foreign Department of UK in London, and the final step is notarized by China Embassy in London. These 3 steps are seldom known by other agents in this field, how are they going to give you a price quotation or timing?

Some cities demand more than just one set of notarization. Make sure of the numbers with local authorities before your investment. If you have some other investments in the coming future in China, you may apply 2 or 3 copies of embassy notarization to be back-up at the same time. Usually, you can get a discount for the 2nd copy. While Vietnam demands only one set of notarization which is valid for three months and it needs to be re-notarized if there is no investment in the period of validity.