With the objective of providing an overview of the history and recent development of tax havens and offshore financial centres in major international financial hubs, the Financial Services Bureau is going to organise a five-day seminar on "Politics and Governance of Offshore Financial Centres", that will take place on April 16th to 20th in the Auditorium of the "Finanças" Building located on Avenida da Praia Grande, n.º 575-585, basement, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Integrated as part of the 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, this seminar will feature as its keynote speaker Professor Ronen Peter Palan, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Birmingham, England, with research interest in offshore finance, international political economy, international relations theory, state theory, and evolutionary economics; professional member of the Tax Justice Network; co-author of Tax Havens : How Globalization Really Works (2010) which was nominated for the 2011 International Political Economy Group's (IPEG) book prize and translated into traditional and simplified Chinese in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The seminar will be conducted in English, with simultaneous translation into Cantonese. During the five daily sessions, the event will analyse different aspects and developments of the peer review mechanism launched by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Global Forum in 2010 as an attempt to enhance international co-operation against tax evasion; the following topics will be discussed: 1) Tax Havens, Offshore Financial Centres: History and Figures; 2) Shadow Banking and Offshore Financial Centres; 3) The Global Forum, Peer Review Phase 1: What Have We Learned So Far? 4) The Global Forum, Peer Review Phase 2: Politics and Policies; 5) What's next? OECD, US and EU initiatives. The 2nd Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field between the European Union and Macao, which incorporates this seminar, has as its main objective the "Consolidation of the Macao Legal System" and is going to take place until December 2013. The execution of the Co-operation Programme is coordinated by the Law Reform and International Law Bureau, together with many entities and public departments of the Macao SAR, namely the Legal and Judicial Training Centre, the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Economic Services, the Financial Services Bureau and the Institute of European Studies of Macao.
