Baishanlin International Forest Development Inc. is again in the news. This time it is challenging the decision of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to seize two Lexus motor vehicles because of the company’s failure to pay the requisite taxes on the importation of these vehicles. The company, through its lawyers, contend that GRA’s action violates the trade agreement entered into in 2003 between the governments of China and Guyana.
Baishanlin was incorporated in September 2006 under the Guyana Companies Act 1991 with the main objective of setting up downstream wood processing operations in Linden and on the East Bank Demerara. It is a Guyanese company and its main shareholder is a Guyanese citizen by naturalisation. The company had signed an investment agreement with the Government on the basis of which it was granted generous fiscal concessions. This is in addition to two State Forest Exploratory Permits despite the fact that Baishanlin did not meet the criteria for the grant of such permits. During the period 2012 to 2015, the company benefitted from concessions in the sum of $1.8 billion. Its shareholders/directors also acquired controlling interest in five logging companies in violation of the Forests Act 2009, thereby gaining access to 627,072 hectares of State Forest.
After nine years, Baishanlin is yet to set up the wood processing facility despite several promises to do so. Instead, the company has been involved in the wholesale exportation of logs mainly through the companies it controls; mining operations and housing development at Providence; among others. The investment agreement specifies that the
