19. STATUTORY RESERVES

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2014

Statutory Reserves [Abstract]

Statutory Reserves [Text Block]

19. STATUTORY RESERVES

Pursuant to the corporate law of the PRC effective January 1, 2006, PRC subsidiaries of the Company’s operating subsidiaries in China are required to maintain one statutory reserve by appropriating from its after-tax profit before declaration or payment of dividends. The statutory reserve represents restricted retained earnings.

Surplus reserve fund

The Company’s Chinese subsidiaries are required to transfer 10% of their net income, as determined under PRC accounting rules and regulations, to a statutory surplus reserve fund until such reserve balance reaches 50% of the Company’s registered capital. The Company’s Chinese subsidiaries are not required to make appropriation to other reserve funds and have no intentions to make appropriations to any other reserve funds. There are no legal requirements in the PRC to fund these reserves by transfer of cash to restricted accounts, and the Company’s Chinese subsidiaries do not do so.

The surplus reserve fund is non-distributable other than during liquidation and can be used to fund previous years’ losses, if any, and may be utilized for business expansion or converted into share capital by issuing new shares to existing shareholders in proportion to their shareholding or by increasing the par value of the shares currently held by them, provided that the remaining reserve balance after such issue is not less than 25% of the registered capital.

Common welfare fund

Common welfare fund is a voluntary fund into which the Company can elect to transfer 5% to 10% of its net income. The Company did not make any contribution to this fund for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and 2013.

This fund can only be utilized on capital items for the collective benefit of the Company’s employees, such as construction of dormitories, cafeteria facilities and other staff welfare facilities. This fund is non-distributable other than upon liquidation.