Note 27 - Employee defined contribution plan

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

27.  Employee defined contribution plan

Full time employees of the Company in the PRC participate in a government mandated defined contribution plan, pursuant to which certain pension benefits, medical care, employee housing fund and other welfare benefits are provided to employees. Chinese labor regulations require that the PRC subsidiaries of the Company make contributions to the government for these benefits based on certain percentages of the employees’ salaries. The Company has no legal obligation for the benefits beyond the contributions made. The total amounts for such employee benefits, which were expensed as incurred, were approximately US$280,000 and US$155,000 for the nine months ended September 30, 2011 and 2010, respectively.  For the three months ended September 30, 2011 and 2010, the Company incurred approximately US$123,000 and US$59,000 employee benefits expenses, respectively.