CCB and IFC Signed Global Trade Service Agreement
　　

Oct.12, 2006—China Construction Bank (CCB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) signed Global Trade Service Agreement in Beijing, which signifies CCB and IFC would hand in hand provide trade finance service for customers.

The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, is a multi-financial institution providing the most financing services for developing countries in the world. It has strong strength and is rated AAA for its long-term credit by Standard & Poor. In 200, it initiated a plan for global trade financing services, which offers payment guarantee for LC and other trade financing products provide by banks in developing countries, so that the payment risk of trade financing in the emerging market could be reduced. So far, there have been more than 60 banks including Citibank, HSBC, and CCB, the first bank entering this plan in China.

CCB, one of the big four state-owned commercial banks in China, is the first bank to get listed in overseas market. As a public corporation, CCB continues to improve its corporate governance, push forward its development strategies transformation in a pro-active manner, strengthen risk management and control, upgrade internal mechanism and business procedures, innovate products and services, and develop all lines of businesses, so that CCB could improve its operation performance in a fast way, receive the recognition from the international market as well as its global investors. With the step-by-step opening up of its financial market after China entering WTO, the competition among domestic banks becomes fiercer and fiercer. Faced with this scenario, partnering with international financial institutions to increase core competitiveness in trade finance has become one of certain choices in China’s banks. It is reported that in recent years, CCB has enjoyed a sound growth in international business, and maintains rapid progress in all Forex businesses. After it got listed, CCB has nailed down its development strategy in international businesses and implementation scheme, which defines its development goal in three years ahead to improve its operation mechanism in this field, upgrade business procedures, speed up products innovation, draw upon its overall strong points, strengthen its marketing and risk management as well as team development, so that its forex business can be promoted in a harmonious way.

The Global Trade Finance Agreement signed by CCB and IFC indicates that both parties will draw full use of each others resources, play a complementary role to each other, promote a joint development, and to realize a win-win cooperation. Meanwhile, supported by IFC’s credit, CCB could explore its trade finance business in other developing countries and enlarge its service scope, so that CCB could improve its image and competitiveness in the international market.