Nov. 3 ICBC in collaboration with the Federation of Thai Industries, Commerce and Banking hosted the "Thailand China Enterprises Forum" in Thailand's Bangkok. The Forum gathered nearly 200 representatives from the officials of China and Thai governments, academic institutions, enterprises and financial institutions.
They shared and exchanged views on the topics covering the ways to seize the historic opportunity that "China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone" has to offer, foster closer ties in trade, financial cooperation between China, Thailand and ASEAN region, and increase opportunities for project investment.
The theme of the "Thailand China Enterprises Forum" is "Building the Future Together". The Forum aims to set up a platform for the frank exchange and cooperation between Chinese and Thailand companies to drive forward the bilateral investment and trade between the two countries, to fully capture the business opportunities. The Forum, highly regarded by the Thai co-organizer, was graced by the Thai senior officials including Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva also delivered his keynote speech at the Forum.
At the Forum, ICBC Chairman Jiang Jianqing stated that ICBC, being the world's largest bank by market value, profitability and deposit balance, placed ASEAN region on the top of the agenda, regarded it as the first stop and starting point for ICBC to "go global" and gain international foothold. Over the past few years, ICBC leveraged the favorable conditions of the higher strategic economic cooperation between China and ASEAN to increase its presence in the region, and improve its services to ASEAN economies and regional cooperation.
ICBC strived to lay the ground to better serve the Chinese and Thai companies and economic cooperation. At present, ICBC has subsidiaries in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam, the five economies occupying over 80% GDP among the ten AESAN countries. These subsidiaries represent ICBC's one step forward in establishing presence and comprehensive service network within ASEAN.
In the next step, banks from China and Thailand should remain committed to the principle of "mutual benefit, win-win". More efforts, more cooperation should be spent in the areas of risk monitoring, technological platform, funds clearing, correspondent banking services. Through helping each other and moving forward together, both sides should endeavour to improve the standard of business performance, risk control and monitoring, and financial cooperation.
Moreover, banks from China and Thailand should share and work together on the network, information, products and technology in order to offer wider range and more comprehensive cross-border financial services to cater to the increasing demand of integrated financial services from the customers of the two countries.
