Research On Aircraft Leasing From Domestic Free Trade Zone

Aircraft leasing is one of the most important areas of financial leasing. Giventhat most aircraft leasing transactions are cross-border trades, requiring heavily onprofessional knowledge and expertise, and most lease items are enormously expensiveand of high risk in residual value, traditionally only big multinational leasingcompanies with affluent capital and high technical strength have the capability toconduct such business. Of the1,900plus commercial jets operated in mainland China,over1,000come from financial lease, with however only100plus owned by Chinesedomestic leasing companies. Although such lag-behind are always explained by suchreasons as the late start of leasing business in China than in other countries and thescarcity of professionals with aircraft leasing expertise, we cannot ignore the fact thatsuch lag-behind is closely related to China’s lagging financial leasing legislation,unstable tax policy and heavy tax burden, severe banking, foreign exchange andcustoms supervision requirements but in ideas, ways, technical means and personnelquality not adapted to changing situations.This thesis intends to elaborate and analyze from the Lessor’s perspective thevarious troubles and risks that domestic leasing companies are facing under currentChinese legal, tax, financial and customs supervision framework and the necessarymeasures they have to take in order to make a breakthrough in conducting aircraftleasing business, including setting up Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) in domesticFree Trade Zone, taking advantage of the favorable fiscal and tax policies, flexiblecustoms clearance and foreign exchange policies in such Free Trade Zones, to conductaircraft financial leasing and operating leasing in China. This thesis may be of certainvalue to the development of Chinese specific aviation&shipping leasing business anddomestic financial leasing business at large.By studying carefully the researches on aircraft leasing related topics home andabroad, and reading diligently all laws, regulations, policies issued by legislators and various governmental authorities in China which are possibly related to leasing,property ownership, banking, foreign exchange, import and export, and taxation, theauthor of this thesis teases out the set of rules and regulations which leasingcompanies must be abide by in order to operate aircraft leasing transactions in China.Based on which, the author integrates the theories he has learned on financial leasingwith his field experience from conducting aircraft financial leasing transactions,probes how to successfully do aircraft financial lease and operating lease business inChina by using as lessor a Special Purchase Company set up in a Free Trade Zone inTianjin, Shanghai or Beijing, designs business models for financial leasing andoperating leasing practice, and further studies the feasibility, advantage anddisadvantage of such models.The author of the thesis believes that by following his SPV leasing businessmodels, even in current as imperfect legal and taxation environment and under assevere customs and foreign exchange supervisions as in China, financial leasingcompanies can avoid all negative impact of the environment and conduct profitableaircraft leasing practices, thus find a new way for the development of domesticfinancial leasing business in aircraft leasing area.