The Tribune

A team of financial experts and politicians represented the Bahamas at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Hong Kong for the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Asia conference on 8 October.

Ryan Pinder, minister of financial services, and John Lawrence, chairman of Bahamas-based Windermere Corporate Management, worked a room of private wealth and estate planning practitioners from China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Mr Pinder is in Asia for the Bahamas China-Hong Kong Landfall, where the minister is meeting with government officials and practitioners from Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai on a two-week trip.

Mr Lawrence was making the Bahamas’ presence felt as worldwide deputy chair STEP, which hosted the award winning conference.

The two-day conference covers developing private client business in a new tax world that includes the global automatic exchange of tax information, the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS), tax amnesties and trust law reform in Hong Kong.

Mr Lawrence said: “This conference is the single-most important stage for private wealth professionals in Asia all year.

“The strong Bahamian presence means Chinese and regional professionals will discover why the Bahamas is one of the world’s foremost wealth structuring centres, and how we can meet the needs of global families to help preserve and grow their wealth and businesses”.

The Bahamas Ministry of Financial Services hosted the conference’s gala dinner, held at the Caf� Deco at The Peak in Hong Kong.

The Bahamas Hong Kong-Shanghai–Beijing Landfalls are part of a series of ‘Landfall’ briefings and receptions held around the world by the Ministry of Financial Services and the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB).