In the afternoon of March 9, ICBC and Datong Coal Mine Group Co., Ltd. (hereafter "Datong Coal") officially signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement in Beijing. Both agreed that ICBC would lead and organize financial syndicates to provide RMB 45 billion financing support to Datong Coal in the planning and construction of energy resources, such as coal, electricity, aluminum and coal petrochemical.
Mr. Zhang Baoshun, Secretary of Shanxi Provincial Party Committee, Mr. Yu Youjun, Governor of Shanxi Province, Mr. Jiang Jianqing, Chairman of ICBC, and Mr. Yang Kaisheng, President of ICBC, attended the ceremony. Mr. Liu Suisheng, Chairman of Datong Coal and Mr. Tang Yisong, General Manager of ICBC Corporate Business Department signed the agreement.
The agreement marked the further support of ICBC in the development of Shanxi economy, the energy sector in particular. The agreement also opened up broader vistas for cooperation between ICBC and Datong Coal.
According to the agreement, ICBC will offer Datong Coal cash management services including Internet Banking, Fund Consolidation and Trust Loans within the system, and international financing services covering Sale and Settlement of Foreign Exchanges, International Settlement Business and International Trade Financing. Within the scope that State Policies allowed, dynamic management services such as structural adjustment to debt percentage, debt term combinations, interest swap of foreign debts are also offered by ICBC.
In recent years, Shanxi Government seized the opportunity of the national strategy in speeding up development of Central China. Under the guideline of setting up new modes for traditional industries and scaling up emerging sectors, new types of energy resources and industry bases were widely installed.
During the "Eleventh Five-Year" period, Shanxi coal industry will follow the strategic deployment of forming new type of energy resources and industry bases. Instead of following the traditional development pattern to increase efficiency simply through raising production volume and prices, Shanxi coal industry will concentrated its efforts on establishing a batch of energy companies of high quality in industry concentration, technological level, resources recycling rate, processing capacity, security standards and environmental protection.
Major construction projects with a total investment amount of RMB 318.3 billion is already in the blueprint.
To draw more inspirations and improve the standard of development during the "Eleventh Five-Year" period, Datong Coal will take coal industry as the staple industry with other sectors developed in parallel with an aim to turn resources advantages into industry benefits. In-depth processing of coal, production of clean coal, industry chain involving coal, electricity, aluminum and coal petrochemical are in the development list to implement a revolving economic strategy for sustainable development
The cooperation between ICBC and Datong Coal implied the joining forces of China largest commercial bank and a Coal Conglomerate. This will create a significant and active impact on the development of China coal industry, promoting strategic structural adjustment to coal enterprises and construction of an industrial base dedicated to new types of energy resources.
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Datong Coal was established in July, 2000 based on the reconstruction of Datong Bureau of Mine. Datong Coal is one of the super big coal enterprises in China, and one of the 520 major State enterprises. It has a total coal mine area of 3048 square kilometers, with a coal reserve of 49.8 billion tons. It is one of the 13 top coal bases in the country. Its coal is popular among customers for its low ash, low sulfur, but high heating energy.
Currently, with Datong Coalfield, Ningwu Coalfield and North of Hedong Coalfield as resources bases, Datong Cola has 49 mines in production with a designed production capacity of 49.77 million tons per annum and an audited production capacity of 56.71 tons per annum. In addition, it also has 13 coal-washing factories with an annual washing capacity of 32 million tons. In 2005, Datong Coal produced and sold 105 million tons of coal, earned sales of RMB 26 billion and a profit of RMB 300 million, which augurs a healthy and bright future for its development.
