| 17. | EMPLOYEES’ EMOLUMENTS |
| Year ended December 31, | |||||||||||||
| 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | |||||||||||
| Salaries and other short-term benefits | 2,476,506 | 1,369,524 | 1,878,963 | ||||||||||
| Defined contribution benefit schemes | 189,621 | 280,594 | 1,888,828 | ||||||||||
| Total employee benefits expense (including directors’ emoluments) | 2,666,127 | 1,650,118 | 3,767,791 | ||||||||||
The employees of the Group’s PRC subsidiaries are members of state-managed retirement benefit schemes operated by the local government. The subsidiaries are required to contribute a specified percentage of its payroll costs to the retirement benefit schemes to fund the benefits. The only obligation of the Group with respect to the retirement benefit schemes is to make the specified contributions.