Research On Brunei's Foreign Investment Law

As the last independent country in ASEAN, Brunei was one of British colonies before 1984. After it's independence, Brunei joined in international and regional forums. And changed the way of economic development, encourage foreigner investors entered in oil and gas upstream and downstream industries, tourism industry and the financial sector in order to reduce excessive dependence on oil and gas industry. In 2001, the Brunei government promulgated the "Investment Promotion Law", try to attract foreign investment. In 2005, Singapore, New Zealand,Chile and Brunei signed the "Trans-Pacific Partnership". This agreement was the predecessor of "Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement" which has been signed in February this year. As a sponsor of the TPP agreement, Brunei has good investment prospects which can provide a broad international platform for foreign investment. Today, the total amount of foreign direct investment in Brunei has been absorbed increased year by year. The main areas of investment are the mining, manufacturing and service industries. China has played a more and more important role in bilateral trade with Brunei.This article presented Brunei Foreign Investment Law to sort out the system and terms from the standing legal perspective. This article struggled to provide some advices for Chinese enterprises which willing to invest in Brunei. Five parts made up this paper, the first part was an overview of Brunei Foreign Investment Law, the second part was generally introduce the Brunei Investment Foreign Investment Law, third part included Brunei Foreign Investment Law specifically incentives provided, the fourth part was about the Brunei foreign investment in the form, the last part discussed the legal risks which Chinese enterprises will face when doing businesses in Brunei.In the first part, there was an overview of Brunei Foreign Investment Law which about the legislative history, legislative model and legislative system of three parts. Brunei Foreign Investment Law was legislated in the form of "Foreign Investment Law Group". Brunei's foreign investment legal system included its national legislation and international investment treaties.The second part was an introduction about admission of foreign investment in Brunei. This part discussed the admission of foreign investment from the perspective of foreign investors. This part introduced the regulatory agencies including the responsibilities of regulatory agencies and the mission first. And then it represented the application and approval process, especially the areas which are allowed, prohibited and restricted. The last part was an assessment of Brunei foreign investment.The third part discussed the investment promotion system which divided into three parts: investment treatment, investment incentives and investment protection. Firstly introduced the treatment of investment, secondly introduced investment incentives, including tax incentives, investment subsidies and preferential export benefits. Since investment promotion need to be complemented by appropriate protection systems, so the last part described the investment protection system, including investment disputes resolution mechanisms, investment guarantee agreements and other modes.The fourth part introduced the form of foreign director investment in Brunei. Firstly, this part introduced the forms which foreign enterprises can take when doing business in Brunei, and then goes the set-up process, and the engineering contracting projects in Brunei, and the BOT form. Finally, this part analyzed the several forms with legal dimension.The fifth part mainly discussed the investment environment in Brunei. First of all, it reviewed the bilateral economic and trade cooperation between Chinese and Brunei. Then analyzed the legal risks which Chinese enterprises invest in Brunei will face. Finally, give some legal countermeasures to resolve those legal risks.