Note 7 - Prepayments and Deposit to Suppliers

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2015

Prepayments And Deposits To Suppliers Disclosure [Abstract]

Prepayments And Deposits To Suppliers Disclosure [Text Block]

7. Prepayments and deposit to suppliers

	As of December 31,
	2015		2014
	US$(’000)		US$(’000)
Deposits to internet resources and TV advertisement providers		622		3,575
Prepayments to internet resources and TV advertisement providers		3,623		4,451
Deposits to other service providers		1,540		-
Other deposits and prepayments		58		66
		5,843		8,092

In order to provide advertising and marketing services, the Company partners with TV stations or its agents to obtain time slots for resale through broadcast advertisements to advertise brands, business information, products and services of its clients. The Company also purchases internet resources from large internet search engines to attract more internet traffic to its advertising portals and provide value-added services to its clients.

Deposits to internet resources and TV advertisement providers are paid as contractual deposits to the Company’s resources and services suppliers. As of December 31, 2015, deposit to internet resources and TV advertisement providers primarily consisted of the contractual deposits of approximately US$0.62 million to two of the Company’s largest internet resources suppliers. The decrease in deposits to internet resources and TV advertisement providers was primarily due to the significant reduction of contractual deposit amount required by the Company’s largest internet resources provider in 2015, as compared to that in 2014.

According to the contracts signed between the Company and its suppliers, the Company is normally required to pay the contract amounts in advance. These prepayments will be transferred to cost of revenues when the related services are provided.

As of December 31, 2015, prepayment to internet resources and TV advertisement providers was primarily all paid to the Company’s internet resources suppliers. Advanced payment carried forward from prior years related to purchase time slots had been fully utilized as of December 31 2015.

Deposits to other service providers consisted of an approximately US$0.70 million deposit to an intermediary service provider, which the Company engaged to facilitate the Company to find, select and negotiate with its internet, TV or other media resource suppliers, and another approximately US$0.70 million deposit for an advisory contract related to finding buyers for liansuo.com and new investors for the Company.