 Good evening to everyone connecting from BC and good morning to our panelists and guests from connecting from East Asia. So welcome to our webinar, Discover Canada's Free Trade Agreements in East Asia and British Columbia's support to interactive digital media. My name is Dana Drost. I'm Manager at the Trade Policy and Negotiations Branch at British Columbia Ministry of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation. And before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking today from the territories of Lekwungen-speaking peoples, the Esquimalt and Sandis First Nations whose historical relationship with the land continues to this day. And I hope that everyone is staying safe in these unprecedented times for the province. So before we kick off, I'd like to go over the agenda and a few housekeeping items. Our today's webinar will last approximately one hour and will focus on a few distinct areas that will be covered in four presentations. So we will start with the presentation on the BC interactive digital media tax credit by the income taxation branch. We will then move to the introduction into Canada's free trade agreements in East Asia and what benefits they provide to service providers in the digital trade. And then we'll jump into expert opportunities for gaming sector in South Korea and ASEAN markets by our dedicated BC trade and investment representatives. So our trade representative from Japan, unfortunately, was not able to join us today. But if you have any questions regarding that market, please direct them to me. So we have reserved 10 minutes for Q&A session at the end of the webinar. Please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen to raise questions at any time throughout the event. Please try to be as specific as possible and also indicate who you are directing your question to. Please know that Derek, BC representative in South Korea, will be taking his questions right after his presentation since he needs to leave a bit earlier. And the session today is being recorded and presentations will be made available in the post event email. And if you experience any technical problems or problems with audio, please send me a message directly in the chat. So for those of you connecting from foreign markets, just a bit of background on the BC gaming industry. So British Columbia is home to one of the oldest video game clusters in North America. And it was established in the early 1980s. And today, the province has a thriving game development industry full of large scale game developers, as well as independent video game studios. The video gaming industry in BC has some competitive advantages, like access to skilled labor force, high quality of life that supports talent retention and recruitment. And BC also boasts prime geographical location and competitive corporate and personal income tax. The industry also grew during the pandemic, increasing the number of full time jobs by 19% between 2019 and 2021. So most importantly, the companies in video game development enjoy strong industry support. And today, we're going to cover just a part of it, BC's interactive digital media tax credit. So without further ado, I'd like to pass it over to Mike Webe, Senior Tax Auditor at the Income Taxation Branch, British Columbia Ministry of Finance, and of course his team for their presentation. Mark, over to you. Thank you, Ganna. We are happy to be here and excited to share some information about a truly great program. I would like to start by introducing the DCID IDMTC team. I've done something to my presentation here. This slide provides the who and where type of information. Of course, to the left is a map of British Columbia and to the right is the team. All of us feel pretty fortunate to be working at a Victoria on beautiful Vancouver Island. Members of the team include Michelle Schley, who is a Senior Tax Auditor, and will be walking us through product eligibility. Jessica Zhang, who is an auditor, will be describing program corporate eligibility requirements. And lastly, myself, Mark Webe, Program Lead and Senior Tax Auditor, I will be providing some program background as well as describing the process of application for the tax credit. As you can see, this is a small team. However, if you ever apply for the credit or make any program inquiries, you will most likely be directed to one of us. I should note also in attendance today is Zarema Brown. I don't know if you want to waive Zarema. She is a relatively new manager for the program, but she's doing a great job so far. And we have to be nice to her because she has final say on approval of all applications. So I don't know if she'll be nice to Zarema. Our general contact information is available at the end of the presentation. Next slide. Here we have a high overview of the program. The program was announced on February 3, 2010 and commenced on September 1st of the same year. Now, prior to these dates, we had a team of tax policy staff collect and compare information from similar digital media type programs across Canada as well as go out and survey a variety of BC based video games. This was done to gain a better understanding of how the industry works, what was most wanted and to understand the characteristics of IDM products. It was based on this research that the legislation and program policy was established for BC IDMTC. Looking at the third bullet, this is a refundable tax credit of 17.5% of eligible salaries and wages. Being fully refundable, amounts receivable would first be applied to any income tax payable. And the remaining amounts are paid to the applicant. Being refundable, there are no carry back or carry forward provisions. And the last bullet, this tax credit is available for companies who are in the business of making IDM products. I'll pass things over to Michelle who will describe in more detail what the IDM product means for this program. Please take it away, Michelle. Thanks, Mark. Since the program was introduced in 2010, we've seen many new advances in technology. Aside from traditional video games such as examples shown, we must ensure consistency and fairness amongst all the products we evaluate. Sorry. Some other types of products we see in addition to the traditional video games include healthcare apps, children's entertainment products, simulators, and ARVR tools. Non-gaming products also need to display characteristics of gaming products. Users must be able to exercise control, receive feedback, and there should be a unique experience for each user. Users cannot simply watch images as spectators. This is not considered interactive. What is an interactive digital media product? It consists of an integrated combination of application and data files that operate together. It's designed primarily to educate, inform, or entertain. It's capable of presenting information in at least two of these forms, text, sound, or images. It's developed in British Columbia. It does not need to be completed or sold to be eligible. It is intended to be used interactively by individuals. How do we determine if a product is used interactively? If a product isn't a traditional video game, we evaluate for gaming characteristics and features. Feedback is the response given to the user based on their actions, such as whether a selection was correct or incorrect, a dame sound or a buzzer, or an image displaying the result. Control is the degree of control the user has when using the product, such as selecting answers, choosing objects, or creating characters. Adaptation considers the product's response to the user's level of ability. This can be more difficult to assess. We look for ways the product adapts to the user's interaction, such as consequences for success or failure, suggestions or hints given, or progression to a higher level of difficulty. Also, we consider if there is a unique outcome for different users. For first-time applications, we usually make a site visit to have a meeting with the applicant and observe the work being performed in the studio. This may include demonstration of some or all of the products claimed. This is an opportunity for us to see the work you do and for you to ask us questions about the IDMTC process. During the pandemic, we have held video conferences and phone calls to discuss applications and answer questions. Now, Jessica will explain the corporation requirements for the IDMTC. Thank you, Michelle. To be eligible for the BBC IDMTC, the applicant must meet both the corporation and product requirements. Michelle has outlined what the product requirements are. I will explain the corporation requirements. To be eligible for IDMTC, a corporation must meet the following requirements. Has a permanent establishment in BC. Permanent establishment means a fixed place of business, which includes an office, factory or workshop in BC. It's a taxable Canadian corporation throughout the taxation year. Has at least $100,000 eligible salaries and wages. The eligible salaries and wages will be paraded for short taxation years. A corporation must also have eligible salary and wages that one, at least $2 million or two are between $100,000 and $2 million and either A is principal business is developing interactive digital media products or B or mostly all of its business consists of providing eligible activities to eligible corporations. Principal business means more than 50% of your business is developing complete IDM products. To be usually applies to service providers. At least 90% of their business must be providing eligible activities to BC companies who will be qualified for BC IDMTC. I will explain what considered as eligible salary and wages later. If applicants meet all these requirements, the corporation requirements will be met. A corporation is not eligible if it is exempt from tax or has taxable income exempt from tax. It's a labor-sponsored venture capital corporation. It's a register employee venture capital corporation or small business venture capital corporation. It's controlled directly or indirectly in any manner by one or more of the above corporations. Claims of BC scientific research and experimental development tax credit is also called the BC shred tax credit carries on a personal services business. One thing I would like to point out is applicants may claim both federal shred tax credit and BC IDMTC but not BC shred tax credit and BC IDMTC. If a corporation is one of the above, then the corporation requirements are not met and thus it will not be eligible for BC IDMTC. One of the corporation requirement is eligible salaries and wages must be at least $100,000. So what are eligible salaries and wages? They must be directly attributed to eligible activities incurred by the corporation in the tax year and paid to individuals who were resident in BC on December 31st of the year preceding the end of the taxation year claim. In summary, eligibility of salaries and wages expense are amongst that pay to the employees of the corporation and the employees must be BC residents at the end of previous year and the tasks they perform must be directly attributed to eligible activities. All three requirements must be met in order to be considered as eligible salaries and wages. I will explain what eligible activities are in the next slide. The eligible salaries and wages do not include stock options amounts paid to specify employees based on profits or bonuses or are in exceed of five times the year's maximum pensionable earnings. A specified employee is an individual who owns directly or indirectly 10% or more of the issued shares of any class of the capital stock of the corporation. Amounts paid to contractors or subcontractors are also not considered eligible salaries and wages. All these amounts must be removed from the eligible salaries and wages. Any assistance received? So what are eligible activities? Eligible activities are activities that are attributable to development of an IDM product. Examples are designed artwork, animation and project management. Amounts paid to employees who are working on eligible activities can be included in eligible salaries and wages. Eligible activities do not include marketing, human resources services, administrative services or management services. Do not include amounts paid to employees who are working on these activities in the eligible salaries and wages. Any assistance received by the corporations for the tax year must be deducted from the eligible salaries and wages. Not all assistance need to be removed. Only those received for the eligible activities in respect of salaries and wages for the tax year must be deducted. Examples are Canada media fund, industrial research assistance program, student training grants and supports received during COVID-19 pandemic. Federal shred tax credit is not considered as assistance so it does not need to be removed. Next I will pass on to Mark and he will guide you through the registration process. Thank you Jessica. So now that we've covered IDM products and eligibility requirements we move on to the process of actually applying for the program. This program is jointly administered between the BC Ministry of Finance that's us and the Canada Revenue Agency often is called CRA. So if you want to take away from this slide hopefully it's applying for this tax credit is a two-step process for each year of application. Corporations first apply to the BC Ministry of Finance who determine eligibility. If a company is determined to be eligible the applicant receives a registration number. This leads to step two. The registration number is used by the corporation to complete schedule 429 when making a claim with CRA. To summarize once that registration number is issued by the Ministry of Finance program and product eligibility is no longer an issue. As part of step two CRA focuses more on claim amounts made by the applicant to ensure they are correct. It's not noted on this slide but it's an important note there is an 18 month filing deadline for the end of the tax year. This deadline must be met by the applicant with both Ministry of Finance and the CRA organizations. So this slide has more of a focus on the first step of the registration process with the Ministry of Finance. As you can see to the right there's a screenshot of the eTax BC website. The only way to apply for registration for BC ID and TC is by using the web-based application. This first step with eTax BC is to enroll for an account. Once this is complete an enrollment letter is sent to the applicant by mail which provides information needed to access that new account. The web-based tool is really a one-stop shop where you can apply for the tax credit, provide any third party representative information if applicable, submit all required supporting documentation as well as pay the annual application fee. It's worth mentioning that when you're accessing your IDMTC account and completing all that information you can stop and save your progress at any time and come back to it when convenient. Okay as mentioned there is supporting documentation required for each claim. This is a simplified list but more details are available on the BC IDMTC website. Commonly required documents include a copy of the financial statements, a short history of the corporation, the current business plan, a list and description of all current and planned IDM products for the tax year including screenshots if you have them. This is probably for me it's the most important point because we're looking at what the company did for the year. The current organizational chart lists the specified employees and key employees, salaries and wages allocation schedule, product allocation schedule and description of any assistance received by the corporation for the year. The main thing as I mentioned is we're trying to determine from all this is what did the company do, what did they develop and do they satisfy all those corporate requirements. As a final comment on this slide it's okay if an applicant misses any given document or documents listed here if we need more information we just simply ask for it. All right there is an annual application fee as noted here. The fee is based on the number of employees at the end of the prior tax year so zero to four employees equates to a fee of $1,000, five to nine employees is $2,500, 10 or more employees equates to a maximum fee of $5,000. Something to note for any companies in their first year of operations the fee would automatically be $1,000 regardless of the number of employees employed for that first year. These application fee payments are really best done using the e-tax BC tool, other methods include submitting a check by mail or courier or paying through your bank or financial institution. However these there can be delays or more reconciliation steps related to those last two steps or options so we encourage all applicants to use the e-tax BC for payments if at all possible. And last slide is our contact information pardon me it includes our phone number which is 1-877-387-3322 our email which is itbtaxquestionsatgov.bc.ca or our website which is gov.bc.ca forward slash digital media credit. As a final comment I can speak for the team when I say we really want applications to be we really want applicants to be successful in application so if you really aren't sure about your specific eligibility please contact us anytime to discuss before you actually apply. Well I should also mention that that phone number is only within Canada so if you are inquiring from outside of Canada just send us an email first and we we can start the communication that way. Yeah I think that's all we have and I think I hope some people have questions for us we're happy to entertain those but I think they happen at the end. I will pass things back to the capable hands of Canada. Thank you so much Mark and Jessica, Michelle thanks for this very informative presentation. I already see some questions coming in the Q&A box but yeah as we mentioned I encourage everyone to use the Q&A box to submit your questions and we'll be taking them at the end of the presentation. So now let's move on to the presentation on Canada's free trade agreements in East Asia and opportunities for a digital services sector. So before we do so I'd just like to say a couple of words about the branch I work at. So the trade policy and negotiations branch represents BC interests in both international and domestic free trade negotiations as well as in trade disputes that affect BC and we also do FTA outreach sessions like this webinar to ensure that the information on how to take advantage of these free trade agreements is widely known. So here is a quick overview of my presentation. I'll start off with welcoming remarks by our Minister of Trade for Trade and I'll talk about Canada's free trade agreements in East Asia and key opportunities they offer to companies like you. So BC Ministry of Jobs Economic Recovery and Innovation aims to make life more affordable for British Columbians by building a strong sustainable economy and improve the standards of living and there are many ways to foster this economic recovery and growth and one way is to encourage you businesses to leverage the opportunities found in free trade agreements and diversify your export markets and this is our job today. So with that I'd like to kick it off with a short welcoming video from the Minister of State for Trade who will explain what support is available to you. So bear with me while I'm sharing the video. Hello I'm George Chao, Minister of State for Trade. I'm pleased to add my support and welcome you to this session. The goal for this session is to share the benefits and opportunity of Canada's domestic and international free trade agreements and to ensure that everyone in BC's diverse regions, communities and sectors receive their information needed. Free trade agreements help open new markets as well as events and protect BC's competitive advantages. They are a critical part of attracting new investment into BC's regions. They apply to all sectors of the economy including forestry, agricultural, intellectual property, clean tech and mining to name just a few. I'm proud to say that last year we held close to 50 information sessions like this one with approximately 1500 participants covering all of BC's regions. We have also held sessions for indigenous businesses and women-owned businesses. Now because of COVID-19 we're continuing the webinars and my hope is we can resume in-person sessions when the time is right. The COVID-19 pandemic has made international trade much more challenging for the foreseeable future. Thankfully the very good news is Canada has 14 free trade agreements covering 51 countries including a new Canada, US, Mexico agreement and agreement with the European Union, Japan, Korea and many others that if used correctly can help lower your costs and provide much needed certainty in these uncertain times. Three trade agreements are complex. My staff are here today to help you understand how they work. I want to ensure that you are supported as you plan for the future. We're also offering help with export and trade readiness throughout export navigator program and we have in-market experts and other resources available in Canada that you will hear about today. I wish you all a successful info session. Thank you. As the minister has mentioned, Canada has a first mover advantage and to this day Canada has actually secured 15 already 15 free trade agreements that cover 49 countries and Canada also has two domestic free trade agreements. So those agreements they give you access to nearly 90 percent of export markets or about 1.5 billion potential consumers worldwide. Free trade agreements have different coverage and some cover only goods while others cover trade in services, in financial services, in investment and also government procurement and temporary entry of business people. So these are usually the later trade agreements such as Canada-US, Mexico trade agreement or CETA, Canada Agreement with the European Union, CKFTA and the CPTPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership and today I'm going to talk about the two latter ones. So let's start with the Canada-Korea free trade agreement CKFTA. Korea is the world's 11th largest economy. It is also the fourth in Asia and it was BC's number four market for goods experts in 2020. With the population of more than 50 million and GDP of more than 1.5 trillion US dollars, Korea is a large market with ample expert opportunities and Korea also has a growing middle class and it's a gateway to emerging and fast growing markets in Asia. CKFTA was Canada's first FTA in Asia Pacific and it entered into force in early 2015. For Canadian goods, average Korean duty of 13% applied until CKFTA entered into force and also before the CKFTA BC and Canadian companies were at a disadvantage because the US and the European Union already had trade deals with Korea and this was an important deal for putting you and other Canadian businesses on a level playing field with many of your international competitors. So now let's move on to the CPTPP, so the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership. It is one of Canada's most recently implemented FTAs and currently it is in force for eight members. Canada, Australia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam and recently Peru. BC through Canada is on a level playing field with those that have already preferential access in the CPTPP markets and has a leg up on those who do not have access at the same level. So but this preferential access will not last forever since the CPTPP entered into force. The European Union has already entered into free trade agreements with Vietnam and Japan and is currently in trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand and I would also like to emphasize that the CPTPP trade area may expand over time. The United Kingdom is currently negotiating its accession and you might have heard that China and Taiwan recently submitted their bids to join the agreement and there was also Thailand and South Korea who expressed their interest previously and there have been some signals from the US they might also reconsider joining better say the CPTPP down the road. So now let's talk how these free trade agreements actually facilitate trade for service providers like you. So I will not go into too many details but we'll try to keep it on a high level. So first let's define what what service means. So your product or the service that you sell is something that you can't drop on your toe. So when it is say a video game that you sell to your business partner or client and you transmit it electronically not on a USB drive or a disc for the purpose of Canada's FTAs it is considered as a service or a digital good that is transmitted electronically. And vice versa when you sell a video game on a switch or cartridge for console gaming then this game would be considered as a good and the good provisions of free trade agreements will apply. So both agreements CKFTA and CPTPP seek to facilitate the trade in services by providing enhanced predictability transparency and level in the playing field for service providers. And provisions of services such as video games are covered by free trade agreements by these free trade agreements. And in both agreements the core obligations related to services are that your service should not get worse treatment than other providers of services from other free trade agreement markets or the World Trade Organization partners. And this commitment is known as most favored nation treatment. You also should benefit from the same treatment as other domestic service providers be it in South Korea or in the CPTPP markets. And this is known as a national treatment. Countries should not impose restrictions on the quantity or types of entity that can supply services. So this is known as market taxes. Then there is also local presence. Artists agreed not to require companies to have a local presence in the market as a condition of doing business. And there is temporary entry provisions that make it easier for you to enter markets temporarily as a business visitor and investor or a highly skilled professional. And temporary entry does not replace the visa process. That's important to note. But you might also need to remind the border officials of the CPTPP entry into a force and have a detailed information at hand. For example, in the case when you don't need a visa to a CPTPP market, you might need to provide this proof that you are visiting on a business purpose and that it is covered by the free trade agreement. And of course, there are some exceptions, but I'm not going into too many details today. So on this slide, you can see some of the FTA's provisions that pertain to the ICT and tax sectors and seek to facilitate a trade through the use of the Internet. So here are several agreements that are compared. KUSMA, CPTPP, CKFTA, CETA, and also Canada, UK Trade Agreement, Continuity Trade Agreement. So you can see that key commitments for digital trade and trade in digital goods and services listed in the left column and FTA's are at the top row. So green check mark indicates that there is a binding provision in the FTA and red cross implies that the provision is not specified in an FTA. So all agreements for C0 percent custom beauties or other charges on digital products that are transmitted electronically. For example, it can be video games, as I've mentioned, software, e-books, videos, music, all listed agreements also facilitate digital transactions by permitting the use of electronic authentication and electronic signatures. FTAs also protect consumers and businesses' confidential information and guarantee foreseeable consumer protections in the digital marketplace and require application of IP enforcement measures to the digital environment. KUSMA and the CPTPP eliminate localization measures on the data storage and processing and some trade in partners have also agreed that they will not demand access to proprietary software source code or algorithms and you'll see some more provisions in this table. Also the digital chapter usually includes cooperation and dialogue for dialogue mechanisms. So for parties to allow to address any arising issues that have not been specified in the in the agreement. So what also might be relevant to you are investment commitments. Both the CKFTA and the CPTPP seek to maintain a predictable, transparent and rules based investment climate and it works both ways whether you are planning to invest into the CPTPP or South Korean markets or whether you are potential investor that is getting ready to invest in British Columbia. So many of the investment provisions they mirror concepts I just went over for services such as most favored nation treatment if one of the parties for example gives an investment from another country better treatment they will apply it to Canadian investors or CPTPP or Korean investors in Canada as well and then national treatment as well parties will treat each other's investors no worse than their own. There are also minimum standards of treatment on how investors will be treated so the rules around performance for example performance requirements so parties cannot impose certain conditions on an investment for example by local or any performance requirements and covered investments are also protected from expropriation or nationalization and investors can freely transfer capital and profits related to an investment into and out of the host country and then there is dispute resolution mechanism in both CKFTA and the CPTPP and they can be used if an investor believes that they or their investment undertaken were discriminated against by the host party. But again there are some exceptions and some reservations to that but this is on a high level and here is just a quick slide before I give a floor to my colleagues in trade investment representative offices so we all need to adapt to an international trade landscape that is continually changing and it can sometimes be tough to know what's going on in the market halfway across the globe and let alone connecting with someone you can trust to do business with. So that's why the network of VC trade and investment representatives shown on this map has grown to 16 offices covering all of our major markets and the role of trade representatives in from VC is to help international businesses discover the benefits of British Columbia as a destination for investment and partner for trade and innovation and the source of quality goods services and resources but they also help VC businesses to contact potential buyers, investors and other partners in global markets so I will stop here and I know it's been a lot of a bit of technical information in this short period of time so I will just close by saying that we continue to support people and VC businesses in recovery from the pandemic by assisting with leveraging opportunities in pre-trade agreements and if there's something that you are considering please get in touch with me and I'll make sure that you get the information and the assistance that you need and now without further ado I'd like to hand it over to Derek Kim, a senior commercial officer at VC trade and investment office in South Korea for his portion of presentation and just to remind you that Derek will be taking your questions right after his presentation as he needs to to leave a bit earlier. So Derek over to you. You don't know just pop up my presentation here okay can you can you see my slides here okay perfect okay thank you so much for the opportunity for me to present market opportunities in South Korea my name is Derek Kim again I'm the senior commercial officer for British Columbia trade and investment office in South Korea co-located in the Canadian embassy in Seoul so there are three things I'd like to cover today which is market overview and the opportunities identify and some of the questions answered I can answer in the end. As you can see Korea is one of the largest trading partners and in between British Columbia and even in the world South Korea especially is the world's fifth largest gaming market with 18 billion dollars per annum. Occurring to create a content agency mobile accounts for 50 roughly nine billion dollars Canadian dollars followed by PC 31 console games 4.5 and arcade 2.1. This is similar trend as about that of the global game market which we see about 48 percent of the market shared by mobile games. In terms of the types of games that's our favorite in Korea market role-playing games followed by first person shooting and then real-time strategies. Impacted by COVID-19 mobile and consoles are growing rapidly as PC games are being with the stable. Some of the key players in Korea as you probably know already in Korea there's what we call as the big three, Nexen, NCSoft and Netmarble. Nexen is known for FIFA mobile maple story with 33.95 billion market cap and 3.34 billion revenue in 2020. NCSoft is known for lineage and guild wars and therefore they're about 25.15 billion dollars market cap and 2.64 billion dollars revenue. Then marble comes third they're known for BTS world marble lineage two and they're at 12.58 billion and 2.83 billion dollars revenue. So those are the three big players and some of the other players include battlegrounds captain lost arcs Smilegate, Lilian's taco game, Black Desert's Purpose and Ragnarok of gravity. Some of the opportunities in South Korea like to suggest to you. First off there are 70.5 percent of Korean populations considered as game players. We play time about 49 minutes per day. Top users are identified as male in age 10 to 20 18 percent then their 40s 15 percent. Average revenue per paying gamers in Korea is highest in the world. Most of games are free to pay but also they are high spending per person. With one of the fastest 5G internet and most connected network which enables Korean game players ever more immersive play. So there's preference right now with the streaming online then download games. Current opportunity I see in the market right now. First off the almost 80 percent of the users use mobile mobile phone to play games especially due to social distancing. Second point is really crucial. So the president Moon which is he's the president of Korea said culture content will be the conscious power of development for the next 100 years meaning that governments really supporting this digital contents area which is on the rise with the game development. You know that there are a lot of YouTube game watching influencers which are that they are collaborating with game developers. Also there are a lot of collaboration between K-pop artists such as BTS world. K-dramas movies as you know the famous parasite and squid game is only a natural progression with the game development. Post COVID we see there's opportunity for esports. Korea state was the first country to host esports with the stadium and part devoted to esports in Pangyo and since then the game Korean government seeking to enter the Korean mode softening the measures against PC bang and the game of arcades suffered greatly during the COVID and now we are really looking into the new era going for the esports. So the government has recently passed a law to financially support local governments to organize their own sport games and some text reliefs to corporations. Into the future outlooks we see that the Korean IT and gaming companies are collaborating to release blockchain games such as in case where Kakao we're incorporating augmented reality virtual reality and heading towards metaverse with non-visitive token NFT attached. We see the case point for NSNC soft stock price spiked 30% amid plans to launch NFT games into 2022 very recently couple months ago. G-Star this is a large gaming related trade show in South Korea which happens every November and with the major local operators such as NC soft, Han game, Kakao games attending. Myself included right now. This is the reason why I'm just showing my presentations over. I am currently at G-Star in Busan with our colleagues and our Canada Pavilion BC Pavilion and we are currently representing three companies from BC cyber spline, MCG and hyper people. This is hybrid show with online portion matchmaking platform with interpretive video conferencing as well. So I highly encourage you to attend next year. Some of the opportunities I see in Canada is the fact that BC is Canada's digital supercluster which is the brand presence we can definitely talk to investors overseas and some of the success stories that came out from our office in the past is the fact that Ka-bomb in Vancouver was acquired by the Marvel 3 900 billion investment in 2017 which was the one of the record high investment into the profits. Subsequent to the acquisition of Ka-bomb the company has expanded its business in Canada by acquiring two more studios in Quebec, Ka-bomb Montreal and Lidia. All this obsiders are game development studios and publishers exporting their games globally. Also in 2021 our office has helped purpose which is one of the key players in Korea to establish their own first North American gaming studio in Vancouver looking to invest 20 million dollars. So lesson learned here is BC's digital contents attract many investors including game publishers to collaborate. Our strategic location close to major markets in North America is to our favor so I highly advise you to reach out to those companies that have presence in BC in Vancouver to seek for possible partnerships. That's it from me. If you have any questions I'd like to take them now. Thank you so much Derek thanks for this informative presentation. So I encourage everyone to send the questions in Q&A panel and just a question probably from me for now. Derek what would be like your view what is the impact of COVID on the gaming industry in South Korea? I know you've mentioned that there was a shift that you saw to mobile gaming but I was wondering whether there is something else that you could add on that. So thank you for the question and as I am currently physically in G-Star right now I've seen a lot of trends that's going on in Korea missed of our COVID situation. So there are a lot of trends that a lot of game publishers are going for collaboration as I mentioned with the contents and media. So they are looking at incorporating with other tech companies as I said with NFTs or blockchains. So the futuristic technologies incorporate into the game so that they're more globally connected and also leverage upon the current situation with the COVID. Despite the COVID we've seen some growth in BC and so has in Korea. So COVID is not really such a drastic thing I guess for the game industry in Korea but they see as more of an opportunity to grow outside of box. So I've seen a lot of growth in Korea for the mobile games development also collaboration with foreign contents and IP owners. So this is definitely something that you should also think try to think outside of box to move ahead. Yeah great thank you so much Derek thanks a lot for this for your input. So I don't see any questions coming but if there are anything that will pop up we'll make sure that these questions reach reach you and without further ado I already see that we are a bit behind the schedule. So I will hand it over to Lisa to Lisa with senior commercial thank you so much Derek. Thank you everyone thank you Lisa thank you Kana bye thank you bye bye so okay Lisa our senior commercial officer at the BC investment BC trade investment representative office in Singapore. So Lisa I'm just about to start sharing your presentation and here we go. Okay thanks Kana hello everyone my name is Lisa I'm a representative of Trade Invest Bridge Columbia based in Singapore so very happy to be here today to give you a brief presentation on the gaming industry in the region. So now gaming industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in Southeast Asia and the market size has increased by four times in just past five years. So let's take a look at some chance that we see in Southeast Asia it's on the upper side of the slide actually some already mentioned by Derek so sorry for the overlap. As you can see mobile gaming is currently the dominant form of online gaming so for many publishers and the developers trying to find success in markets so mobile naturally became a sensible entry point. Once of course it's simpler you know for them to develop mobile titles and also for consumers they don't need to invest in a PC or console because they already have a mobile anyway and second chance we see his cloud gaming so it's kind of like streaming you don't need to like pay for individual games and then download install on your device and also you know with the launch and development of 5G network that has already begun in some countries here like Singapore Indonesia and Malaysia so this will just drive for further growth of cloud gaming and another chance that has also been filling the games market in the region is the rise of esports and so it also affects esports related video content which is becoming very popular here and you know that actually Asian Olympic Council has even added esports to its list of disciplines for 2022 Asian games in China so now moving on to challenges you know on the other side of the slide first challenge is about diversity in the region so you know the individual markets have vastly different preferences for example on type of games from one another and in addition to you know this cultural difference language is another barrier when entering the markets and there's also concern you know around impartiality of the legal system in some markets here so we see many overseas game developers are trying are very struggling with the protection of their IP as well as no gaming rights and secrets when we're operating in the region and the last challenge I want to mention is around you know local regulations it can be quite straight in some countries for example it happened in Vietnam just two years ago that Apple and Google were ordered to take down you know several games from their store due to illegal content so despite all these challenges I have to say there are still vast opportunities in the region so next slide please Gana so first on Singapore you know especially with the growing you know regional income and improving digital infrastructure as well as government support so in Singapore you know we see a lot of companies choose Singapore as a launchpad even though their main audience is not necessarily in the country so you know we see that Singapore is home to some top game studios like Tencent, Riot Games, Storms, Ubisoft etc so you must be wondering what makes Singapore an attractive regional base for these gaming companies across the world well first and foremost it's about the ease of doing business so in addition to strong legal system here Singapore has also the lowest corporate tax rate in the region and there is a 17 percent and second is about really the location and the talents so you know in Singapore you'll be surrounded by half billion you know customers within just three hours of flight and all these surrounding countries are covered by Singapore's extensive trade agreements as well and of course you know there's also work class education here that provides industry with skilled talents and expertise so the labor cost I have to say is a bit high here and then probably add that we also have you know the highest internet penetration rate and the fastest broadband speed and now moving on to Indonesia on your right hand side which is the biggest gaming market in Southeast Asia despite it's known as internet penetration rate in the region but the number is expecting to reach to 82% by 2026 and plus nine in ten Indonesians are expected to have a mobile phone by 2025 so you can imagine the gross potential here with growing number of internet and smartphone users and moving on to the Philippines which is the fastest growing market in Southeast Asia in 2022 so the Philippines is also the only country in the region that fully announced casino online gaming of course it's licensed and regulated and you you already know the English is an official language there and the Philippines has a very competitive labor cost that's why you know local companies there are usually involved in production and pace production of games lastly on Vietnam when you think about Vietnam is there in the youth population more than half you know Vietnam's population is under the age of 25 and then there's also the smartphone penetration in Vietnam is also very high and internet there is much cheaper you know compared to other ASEAN countries but also much slower so the government launched a digital transformation policy just last year we see an aim to ensure that more than 80% of households in Vietnam will have access to final optic infrastructure by 2025 so again you see the full potential there in the country so this is just a very brief introduction please reach it out to us whether you are looking to for collaboration partners or setting up a shop by yourself so we have offices on the ground and happy to help with you know market intelligence or business matching so thank you very much and now I will head back to Dana thank you Lisa thanks so much for this succinct presentation so I encourage everyone so we are starting our Q&A session now so I encourage all the panelists to come back to the screen with videos and if you have any questions that pop into your mind during the presentations that's the right time to ask them to send them in the Q&A box so I can already see one question there and this is probably the question to the taxation team so there was a question is there a difference between VC IDMTC and IDMTC in case there was IDMTC mentioned separately that was probably something that popped into into someone's mind they got one basically that's the same thing I think IDMTC was just a short version of VC IDMTC for this presentation but there are other interactive digital media tax code programs across Canada so to be specific any references was was really meant for VC IDMTC great thank you so much Mark thanks a lot so we we have actually received a few questions during the registration stage so we'll probably cover start covering them first and while you're sending your questions in the Q&A box so that would be probably also the question to Mark and his team regarding the any time limits on a tax credit program so was there or is there any time limits that is associated with this current program I think you're referring to a program end date is that correct yeah yeah so wow yeah that's pretty common for our tax credit programs to sort of have that program end date typically these can be a two-year a one-year extension up to a five-year extension the last one for VC IDMTC was a five-year extension and I believe that's coming up in a couple of years but really this given how popular this program is with industry with with the elected officials and just the success of it I don't foresee any issues with with it not being updated for example I think we do have a VC scientific and research experimental development tax credit that's been around for over 20 years and it gets a little booster shot of two or three year extensions at a time and it's just a way of a way of keeping these current and and and putting life in them so there is an end date but I wouldn't be too concerned about that like I said due to the success and the popularity of this tax credit program okay great that's great mark thank you Lisa a question to you so for a VC company in gaming industry if they want to enter say Singapore or Vietnam market what would be the first steps that you would recommend so they would reach out to you and then what would be your steps that you would suggest them to do first so I guess it's really depends on so what is their so what so it's a publisher or developer so normally we see those companies when they come into the market so they normally find a partner unless it's a very you know large company they just set up representative office here so the first step I would suggest they do so if they know what they want it's about the gaming so animations so what's their type of gaming you know it's quite different so in different countries even ASEAN it's quite different their preferences so for example one country is really the war game is very popular but the other is animation game is more popular so depends on what type of you know may think the gaming things is and then so we can help is if they want to you know set up a shop by themselves we can what them through about the process if they are looking for a partner we can also understand what their requirements are we can also you know provide a list of some you know publishers for example or even consulting firms so we have been working with so we can definitely you know have a further discussion on that yeah okay great thank you so much so there is a last chance to submit your questions or if someone wants to raise your hand and ask questions live please go for it otherwise we are I see that we are two minutes behind our schedule so I just wanted to thank thank you thank you Mark Jessica Michelle Lisa Derek and thank you everyone for attending today's webinar discover Canada's free trade agreements in East Asia and British Columbia's support to interactive digital media so if you have any other questions or any questions that pop into your mind please contact us at the contact details that you will find in our presentations and you will receive a follow-up email with a link to view a recording of today's webinar and the PDF files of the presentations along with a survey that we would appreciate if you could complete that and provide your feedback on this session so on behalf of BC government and our speakers thank you for joining us today and have a great rest of your day