Generally，to set up rep. office/ branch/ subsidiary/ factory under the name of offshore co. in China/ Vietnam, the documents of offshore co. should be notarized by local embassy. There was a new regulation that affects foreign investors greatly in China from May 2006. When you are using your offshore company to set up a factory, company or reps., all documents of that offshore company must be notarized by local Notary Public, Foreign Affairs and China Embassy. Vietnam, meanwhile, also requires local Notary Public and Vietnam embassy notarization of offshore co. documents for foreign co. and individual when investment in Vietnam.
Cases vary in jurisdiction. For example, due to the diplomatic relationship between Panama and Taiwan, there is no China embassy based in Panama. Although you have Panama IBC documents be notarized by China embassy based in USA or Mexico, your documents may be denied or postponed for months because of too few cases that they had been taken before. So when you decide to make an investment in China/ Vietnam, make sure that your foreign (offshore) company is based in a nation where there's China/ Vietnam embassy. You'd better choose an offshore company like Seychelles/ Brunei, and through PPM your embassy notarization will become much easier.
Offshore co. registration needs comprehensive knowledge of tax/ law/ foreign exchange control/ financial policies and so on, so it is very important for investors to select a registered agent with rich experiences. Some small management agents (offshore co. agents) based in Taiwan or HK need to ask the foreign middle agents, 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 China/ Vietnam will be postponed for 2~6 months. 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 to be notarized by China Embassy in London. These 3 steps are seldom known by other agents in this field, not to mention showing you price quotation and processing time.
