Panama and China aluminium

The recent release of the Panama Papers - 11 million documents relating to offshore company ownership - has had a stranglehold on the world’s headlines. It led us to wonder, to what extent do China’s aluminium companies use offshore entities in their corporate structures?

There is nothing illegal in setting up an offshore company. AZ China is registered in Hong Kong though we operate in China (and I am based in Thailand), so we are not making any suggestions or implying any allegations.

We checked the websites of 25 aluminium companies in China, to see which ones have an entity registered offshore. Some 23 of the 25 companies that we looked at are registered inside China, with only Hongqiao and Zhongwang having an entity listed elsewhere - Cayman Islands in both cases.

Again, I stress that we are not making any suggestions or laying any accusations. Our charter is to bring information to our clients and subscribers. This is publicly available information from each company’s website; we have simply compiled the information into one list.

Here is the list of companies we checked. We are presently checking anode companies, calcining companies, coal tar pitch companies, aluminium fluoride companies and the like to see who else has an entity listed offshore.