A top Canadian executive has expressed hope that more Korean companies will be attracted by British Columbia’s tax incentives.

Under the tax benefit program, a company can receive a provincial corporate tax refund of 10 percent by registering an international business in the region. There are also programs where refunds will pay back on the net income of the international financial business.

“Increasingly, companies are starting to pay attention to this benefit because as profit margins begin to tighten up, profits are not what they used to be, so people have to look for other ways to increase their bottom line, so one of the things to do that is to save on tax dollars,” Advantage BC vice president of business development Jimmy Mitchell told The Korea Herald.

The company informs companies about tax incentives for businesses in British Columbia.

The incentives apply to financial investments, administrative support functions, financial advice and research, foreign exchange, leasing, factoring receivables, film and television distribution and insurance services.

More recently, the province announced the program would be expanded further to cover digital media, clean technology, and carbon credit trading.

“One focus is taking in Asian financial institutions whether it’s banks or large trading houses looking for strategic investments in any variety of areas in Canada, be it energy or natural resources, financial services, servicing their clients or fund administration,” he said.

In the resource sector, an area where British Columbia is very strong, Korean firms are tapping into the supplies and exporting them back home.

“There is room for Korean companies to be looking at the Canadian market,” he said. “We’re working slowly, sometimes it will take years from the first contact until they do something that they can get a tax refund for.”

Mitchell explained that Korean firms are interested in infrastructure development, waste water treatment facilities and the alternative power sector.

On the other side of the Pacific, British Columbia companies are selling resource based products.

As for British Columbia’s film industry, Mitchell explained that if the film or television product is licensed in B.C., the same incentives apply once the distribution of the media product is exported outside of Canada

“The provincial government has lots of incentives for companies to do production work in B.C., we have a great film production credit system and that is one of the reasons we have been so successful in bringing Hollywood to Vancouver to film,” he noted.

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)