On December 13, 2010, ICBC's CPC Party Secretary and Chairman Jiang Jianqing presided over an enlarged meeting of the ICPC Party Committee to convey and interpret the messages contained in the Central Economic Work Conference, and advise on specific and practical measures to be taken in line with the meeting's principle.
ICBC's CPC Party Committee said, this year's Central Economic Work Conference reviewed the economic and social achievements that China had accomplished in 2010 and during the "11th Five-Year" period, studied both China's and world's economic condition at the current stage, and put forward general requirements, core principles and main tasks of the country's economic planning for the next year.
In an effort to carry out the Scientific Outlook on Development, the Meeting had played a significant and steering role in consolidating and enhancing China's success in addressing the impact of the global financial crisis, maintaining steady and healthy economic development, social harmony and stability, accelerating economic transformation, and making a good start for China's "12th Five-Year" period in a bid to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the CPC with remarkable achievements in 2011.
ICBC's CPC Party Committee was committed to embrace the Meeting and aligning the bank's general strategies and actions with the projection and guidance made by the central government on the economic trend and conditions, with the government's general deployment and macroeconomic policies for the next year, and with the main theme of Scientific Development and accelerating economic transformation.
Considering the complexity and severity of the current economic situation from the overall and strategic perspective, ICBC was expected to identify the new requirements, new opportunities and new challenges that the macroeconomic growth had posed on financial services and the bank's management and operations.
More efforts should be made to balance the relationships between steady and fast economic growth, economic structural reform, and managing inflation expectations. By properly conveying the message contained in the national macroeconomic policies, ICBC would play a full role as a large bank in support of China's economic growth with a strong sense of responsibility and mission, and strive to achieve fast and healthy development of the whole bank group.
Meanwhile, ICBC's CPC Party Committee proposed several measures to fully carry out the instructions stated in the Central Economic Work Conference.
First, ICBC's credit and loan business will follow the national macroeconomic policies in order to strike a balance between the steady and healthy growth in the real economy and the sustainable growth of the bank. Measures will be taken to maintain reasonable growth in the total credit outlay and balanced release of loans.
Work will be focused on increasing loan turnover and utilization to meet diverse funding needs of customers as well as the demand from the economic entities. As China is expanding the scale of direct financing through stocks, bonds, industry funds and other financial tools, ICBC will speed up innovation in non-credit financing products and lend support to the economic entities with multiple financing resources.
Second, efforts will be made in adjusting to target credit structure, supporting strategic economic restructuring and transformation. ICBC's credit policies will be further aligned with the national macroeconomic policies, industry policies and regional policies. Greater support will be rendered to key areas and weak sectors.
In order to increase the quality and efficiency in the financial services to spur economic growth, ICBC will aim to achieve "8 Better-Supports". That is, to better support industry upgrade and green economy; to better support SMEs; to better support key national projects; to better support national strategies on regional development; to better support Chinese enterprises to "go global"; to better support the development of "agriculture, farmers and rural area" and urbanization; to better support the central government's effort to expand consumer demand; and to better support the construction of housing for low-income families.
Third, ICBC will exert tighter control over risks in key areas to ensure stable quality of its credit assets in long term. Credit is strictly extended to inflation-prone areas as required by the state policies. Foreign exchange management policies will be observed to prevent the inflow of "hot money" from abroad.
The differentiated housing credit policy will be strictly implemented to curb speculation. Loans to high energy consumption and high emission industries and to over-capacity industries are strictly limited. Measures will be taken to better monitor the use of personal loans to prevent the risks of loan appropriation and vicious overdraft.
By putting in place the new rules of financial supervision, ICBC will try to improve risk management, ensure stable quality of its credit assets in the long run, and achieve steady and healthy growth of the whole bank group.
Fourth, ICBC will take proactive actions to step up strategic reform on business operation and accelerate the re-orientation. Not only moving in line with the changing economic and financial landscape in China and in the global markets, ICBC also strives to speed up its strategic reform on the business structure, consistently increase the competitive edge and profitability of various business lines, and maintain comprehensive, balanced and sustainable growth.
Fifth, effort will be made to achieve integrated operation and international expansion. Taking advantage of the national policy in encouraging Chinese enterprises to "go global" and in accelerating Renminbi internationalization drive, ICBC will speed up the expansion to its global network and promote the localization of ICBC's overseas branches.
At the same time, ICBC will cater to customers' needs for comprehensive and diversified financial services across markets, steadily move towards all-round operations, enhance its capacity to offer one-stop services and increase profitability in cross-market operations.
