A grand Opening Ceremony of ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited) Sydney Branch took place in Sydney, the biggest city in Australia on September 23, 2008, which declared the formal establishment of ICBC Sydney Branch. ICBC Sydney Branch is the first branch set in Australia by ICBC, signing a key step towards international operation strategy taken by ICBC and the further perfection of global financial service network of ICBC.
China and Australia are two important countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In recent years Sino-Australian relationship shows a sound development momentum and broad development outlook. In 2007 the value of trade between the two countries was 43.85 billion US dollars, and the figure reached 27 billion US dollars in the first half year of 2008. Today China has become the most important trade partnership of Australia. Recently the mutual investments of two countries obtained the rapid development. By far nearly 9,000 investment projects of Australia in China newly have been approved by Chinese government, contracts involving foreign capitals of nearly 20 billion US dollars have been signed, and over 5 billion US dollars of foreign capitals have been put into use. By the end of 2007, China had invested in over 340 projects in Australia and directly invested in Australia with around 2 billion US dollars. The enhancing relationship of economy and trade as well as investment between two countries lays a firm foundation for the development of financial industry, also brings forth a new demand on bank services.
ICBC Sydney Branch is located in the financial center of Sydney and mainly specialized in some business like international settlement, trade financing, project financing and capital transaction. Supported by strong capital, network and technological platform, ICBC Sydney Branch will fully play its geographical advantage located in the central city of Australia, and offer quality financial services to clients engaged in Sino-Australian trades, transnational companies, financial institutions and personal clients.
Recently, under the background of economic integration and financial globalization, in response to the huge demands of trans-territory financial services derived from the strategy of "Going Global", ICBC is making great effort to boost the internationalized operation strategy all along, accelerate the configure of institutions overseas, expand the business scope, and lift the capability of trans-territory financial services. ICBC has obtained the striking achievements in network building of institutions overseas since 2008: ICBC has completed the acquisitions of 20% of equities of South African Standard Bank and 79.9333% of equities of Seng Heng Bank by the first half of this year. By far the applications for establishments of ICBC Doha Branch and ICBC Middle East have been approved by the supervision authorities of the host countries. In addition, the application for establishment of ICBC Hanoi Branch has been approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission and the procedure of submitting the application for approval overseas is in progress. ICBC New York Branch has been formally approved by Federal Reserve Board on August 5, 2008 (East Time).
Besides numerous branches and strong service networks distributed in mainland China, by the end of June of 2008, ICBC had set up operation institutions in 15 countries and regions of the world, owned 126 branches overseas, established correspondent bank relationships with 1,360 banks in 122 countries and regions, created a global financial network service platform covering international financial centers and major areas of economy and trade in China with clear layers, reasonable orientation, diversified channels and efficient operation.
On the Opening Ceremony, Yang Kaisheng, President of ICBC said, ICBC would dedicate itself to offer qualify financial services for the Sino-Australian relationship of economy and trade and put priority on the cooperation and communication among financial industry of two countries. The establishment and formal open of ICBC Sydney Branch would set up a bridge of economy and trade between two countries. ICBC would create values for its clients, enhance the long-term business cooperation between clients and ICBC, and boost the further development of relationship of economy and trade as well as mutual investments of two countries through sound financial services. ICBC Sydney Branch would accord to the best international practice in operation activities, strictly abide by the financial supervision rules of Australia, strengthen risk management and inner control, become a bank with sound social reputation in local and further enhance its capability of services for Sino-Australian cooperation in economy and trade as well as Australian financial market.
