ACA Internal News
As another year passes it seems to have gone so quickly. 2011 was truly a milestone year for ACA with the opening of offices in Hong Kong and China.
We have had another year of global financial crisis but have managed to be successful in all areas of our business. New Zealand has shined with great growth during difficult times, Hong Kong and China have been profitable after the first few months of establishing our business and absorbing initial setup costs and Australia has performed to budget.
I would like to thank each and every staff member for their contribution and loyalty to ACA during very difficult times. We can hopefully look forward to an improving world economy in 2012 and further recovery beyond.
We have great opportunity for growth as constant technical innovation and product development gives us an edge over our competitors. The fact we have prevailed during difficult times is very promising for the future.
On behalf of myself and all the respective directors and board members, I would like to wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.
We outlined the developments of the business in the previous newsletter which included the additions to our New Zealand and Australian offices of our new family members in Hong Kong and China.
With the inclusion of the new offices ACA has been able to view the way we process information differently resulting in the first stages of us locating resources in Shenzhen to support the various global offices with the first being Australia.
From early December the Shenzhen office now has local resources dedicated to the operational processing of Australian destined shipment from all over the world. Due to our global offices all working from the same instance of EDI Enterprise we are able to set up systems, structures and reports to manage the workflow remotely.In the future we hope to expand on the ocean freight tasks being performed in Shenzhen at the moment for Australia and New Zealand to take advantage of the various benefits that are the result of our global structure.
We’d like to welcome Lily Zeng to ACA Shenzhen and Melbourne teams and thank ACA China management for their support of this innovative development.
ACA Australia celebrated Christmas with the annual staff Christmas party held in the suburb of Richmond in Melbourne. All staff from the various offices around Australia attended which helped make for a great night.
Above: Melbourne staff members Melissa Brown, Emma Sparkes, Sarah Booth, Danielle Keast and Leanne Colletta.
Some staff partied into the early hours of Sunday and were still a little worse for wear on Monday! It was good to see that after a long hard working year that all staff enjoyed the social event and could let off some steam.
Kathy Tang from ACA Melbourne’s finance dept had a little boy on the 17th Jan 2012. The proud parents named him Tristan weighing in at 3.44kgs.
ACME Batteries was formed in 2010 and is now servicing the New Zealand market for automotive, commercial and marine batteries.
ACA is assisting our customer by importing FCL’s, devanning containers, courier consignments, contract warehousing and national trucking services to match the needs of our client. As a value added aspect we also have provided an in-house office providing Acme with a base to support customer enquiries, and in house sales calls as needed.
This facilitation has helped ACA support the growth of our clients business and will also further strengthen our relationship with our customer.
ACA has provided Koba with a cost effective start up business model which has allowed Koba to establish itself as the fastest growing battery brand in the market by securing exclusive supply contracts with a vehicle rental provider, small regional auto distributors and a National auto supply company.
Gulzaar started at ACA NZ in March 2008 as the import operator. He has worked his way up to being the senior member of our export department. Gulzaar has also shown considerable flair as accounts receivables and payables.
Gulzaar grew up in Ciriwai, Fiji. His family owned Sugar Cane, Vegetable and Cattle Farms in Cirwai (located between Nadi and Sigatoka). He worked for numerous large companies in Fiji in roles from Purchasing, Shipping and Customs Manager.
ACA assisted Gulzaar and his family in receiving citizenship in NZ and he is now studying Post Graduate in Logistics and Supply Chain management at Massey University after hours.
In keeping with his faith Gulzaar has introduced us to the best Halal pizzeria within the Airport Oaks area. We also hear about Gulzaar’s fishing exploits and weekend trips around the North Island of New Zealand with his wife and daughter.
Maersk led the announcement and their competitors followed advising that they will be suspending the current Congestion Surcharge on all shipments in and out of Sydney, Australia from 5 December 2011.
Current indications are that the extreme delays that prompted the part sharing of costs with customers are subsiding and the outlook for on-schedule performance has improved. While the situation at Sydney, Australia is still not optimal, continuing to add costs for shippers servicing Sydney, Australia, carriers are working with various service providers to enable improved service levels.
To maintain a good relationship for each of our colleague within our group, ACA Hong Kong always organizes different types of gathering.
Recently, we gathered all the staff of HKG office for lunch with Ms. Eidy Chan and Mr. Jason Lee for their birthday celebrations in mid November. Here below are some photos for sharing.
ACA China has achieved NVOCC License granted Chinese Government. This is recognition that we are a responsible company as all shipments moved under ACA Bills of Lading will be protected by China Government.
This license issued by Ministry of Communication P.R. China, which allow us to expand & develop NVOCC/Freight Forwarder business legally in the rapidly expanding China & worldwide market for whole ACA group.
In Mid-November, ACA Shanghai conducted the Autumn BBQ gathering to thanks for the total support from all Shanghai colleagues. The gathering held in Oriental Land (Shanghai). It was a self-served BBQ with light buffet.
We would like to introduce Jacky Cao (Senior Sales & Marketing Supervisor) who joined us with the opening of the Shanghai office in 2011. Jacky graduated from Tongji University and achieved a degree in administration management. His work for number of years in Shanghai terminal, sales and marketing at several freight forwarding & shipping agency companies which bring us a wealth of knowledge and experience.
His likes are chatting, online games, watch soccer games and play mahjong with his friends. His dislikes are rats, no space and expensive rates offer by carriers or service providers.
As an important means to realize the aim of tax reform within the 12th Five-Year Plan, the trial reform from Business Tax (“BT”) to Value-added Tax (“VAT”) which also be expressed as “expanding the scope of VAT” is the recent controversial topic of tax authorities and taxpayers. In these days, the determination to practice the trial VAT reform has been finally announced in the Executive Meeting of the State Council and this clarification will definitely further solve the double taxation issue in the tax rules applicable to goods and services and improve the taxation mechanism to support the development of modern service industry.
On 26th October 2011, Mr. Jiabao Wen (the premier of the State Council) host the Executive Meeting of the State Council and clarified that “the trial VAT reform will be firstly conducted in the transportation industry and some modern service industries in Shanghai from 1st January 2012, and then will be expanded to some other selected industries nationwide in the ripening conditions and stage. In the meanwhile, the low VAT rates of 11% and 6% have been newly added on the basis of the current general VAT rate of 17% and preferential VAT rate of 13%. In the trial period, the tax revenue sourced from the VAT reform and previously attributed to the local BT revenue in the trial city will still belong to the trial areas. The original BT preferential policies in the trial industries in the VAT reform can be continued and adjusted according to the features of VAT. The taxpayers involved in the trial reform can claim the input credit to offset against the output VAT liability.”
Currently, sales of goods, processing and repairing services are subject to VAT while BT is levied on provision of most services, transferring of intangibles and immovable. However, an input credit is only available in the VAT system instead of BT system. For BT taxpayers, there exists the drawbacks as double taxation, heavy tax burden and no tax refund in the exportation in the service industries, which has become a vital mechanism obstacle to restrict the development of service industries. This trial VAT reform and the corresponding newly introduced VAT rates is a good start to solve the dilemma of current indirect tax system.
We have foreseen and conveyed the trend of the trial VAT reform to the sincere contacts in our prior tax alters and seminars before the official announcement. And hereby we have summarized the following highlights to draw your attention based on our further analysis:
According to the announcement launched by the State Council, the trial VAT reform to expand the VAT scope will be official effective from 1st January 2012, but the specific service industries subject to the transfer from BT to VAT scope and applicable to the new VAT rate of 11% and 6% is still to be clarified by the authorities till now. In this regard, in the following two months, more detailed implementation rules are expected in relation with the trial VAT reform. It is estimated that the official circulars will be published by the State Council and National Tax Authority in November, and the local tax authority in Shanghai will accordingly regulate the detailed rules for practice in time and update the current tax filing system. We will keep you posted of the latest information and elaborate more analysis from a technical point of view once relevant tax laws and regulations are published.
SHIPPING lines participating in the Asia Australia Discussion Agreement have announced a move to hike bunker surcharges on the Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Australia trade.
"Reflecting recent increase in the price of oil at Hong Kong and South Korea, the member lines of AADA wish to advise that in accordance with the established review, the bunker surcharge level for such shipments will be raise to US$650 per TEU and $1,300 per FEU for dry and refrigerated containers with effect from January 14, 2012," said the AADA statement.
AADA members include ANL, CSLC, Cosco, Hamburg Sud, Hanjin, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, "K" Line, Maersk, MSC, MOL, NYK, and OOCL.
PORTS in southeast China's coastal province Fujian lifted a total of 7.87 million TEU of containers from January to October, 10.6 per cent more than in the same period in 2010.
According to Xinhua's report, port of Xiamen recorded a container throughput of 5.23 million TEU, up 9.7 per cent year on year. Port of Fuzhou handled 1.36 million TEU, up 11.4 per cent. Port of Meizhou Bay's box volume increased 13.5 per cent to 1.29 million TEU.
In the same period, Fujian ports' throughput amounted to 308 million tonnes, up 15.6 per cent. Xiamen handled 130 million tonnes, up 14.8 per cent. Fuzhou handled 82.97 million tonnes, up 14.8 per cent. Meizhou Bay handled 94.7 million tonnes, up 12.6 per cent.
Fujian Province and Sea ports
We are delighted to have Gareth Fletcher (Forwarding Manager – Melbourne HQ) to visit Shenzhen branch for 1 week to manage the training of Lily Zeng of the new job duty between Melbourne and China office.
Gareth and Lily in a training session
Sarah has worked for a large Multi-National Freight company in varying roles. Sarah has 5 years’ experience in import and export operations and she is looking forward to working with everyone at ACA and assisting with fast and efficient quote requests.
Yashneel has been with ACA NZ since September 2011 as an import operator. Yash joined ACA NZ after 2 years overseas where he worked his way around Europe and UK in varying roles. Prior to his time Europe Yash worked for a freight company as their Import Air operator. Yash hopes to bring accuracy and efficiency to his department that the whole ACA group will appreciate.
Peggy joined our big family in November 2011. She is a Christian and she likes to listen to music and poetry very much.
Peggy likes sport, particularly swimming which makes her stronger and healthier. Chocolate is her favourite food, tasting between bitter and sweet are so fantastic. Peggy enjoys the Christmas period very much since it’s the festival full of love and it’s a valuable time for staying and celebrating with family and friends.
Lily has joined our big family on 22nd Nov, 2011. Lily is stationed at Shenzhen office to working with Melbourne import operations which is the creative idea of our top management. This new development is achieved through the high capacity of our IT network. She is very enthusiastic about her new challenge.
Lily is an energetic and sportive girl who enjoys playing badminton and volleyball in her leisure time.
Hong KongBranch regrets to advise that Ms Yuki Lai has left our company in late October we have expressed our blessing on her for a prosperous future.
We thank you to Ms Fiona Zhu, Shanghai Branch, who resigned on October in order to spend more time with her family.
Qingming Festival - 2 to 4 April 2012
May Day - 29 April to 1 May 2012
Dragon Boat Festival - 22 to 24 June 2012
Ching Ming Festival - 4 April 2012
Easter Holidays - 6 to 9 April 2012
Labour Day - 1 May 2012
Waitangi Day - 6 February 20121
Easter Holidays - 6 to 9 April 2012
ANZAC Day - 25 April 2012
Labour Day (VIC only) - 12 March 2012
Easter Holidays - 6 to 9 April 2012
Labour Day (QLD only) - 7 May 2012
Queen’s Birthday - 11 June 2012