Chile, 25 May 2015–During the state visit to Chile, Premier Li Keqiang announced that China Construction Bank (CCB) Chile Branch was appointed as Chile’s RMB clearing bank while the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) released the news on its official website. It is the first time that the PBOC has designated an RMB clearing bank in South America, and the second time that CCB has achieved the overseas RMB clearing bank status after being named as the London RMB clearing bank.

Chile is one of the most internationalized economies in South America. Given a favourable time zone, establishing an offshore RMB clearing network with the RMB clearing bank in Chile will give rise to a more efficient RMB flow in Latin America. This move will not only boost economic and trade ties between China and Chile, even China and Latin America, but also facilitate the development of Chile’s offshore RMB market in the short and long term.

As the RMB clearing bank, CCB will provide efficient and safe RMB clearing services, expand the active and orderly RMB offshore capital market, and establish a well-recognized RMB pricing mechanism for commodities. Based on the local RMB clearing network, CCB will extend clearing services to the neighboring countries and regions in need. CCB will promote the development of the local RMB market by offering more RMB products and improving its market-making and quoting capabilities.

So far, CCB has reached consensus with several major local banks on cooperation in RMB clearing and other businesses. CCB will, in accordance with the regulatory requirements of both China and Chile, commence operations as the Chile RMB clearing bank and provide fair, prompt, accurate and professional RMB clearing and settlement services to the participating banks.

As one of the world pre-eminent banks in the RMB business, CCB has closely followed national strategies and established a centralized offshore RMB clearing system directly serving almost 20 countries and regions in five continents. CCB takes full advantage of “integration, multifunction and intensiveness” at the Group level and proactively steps up its internationalization by the expansion of an overseas network blanketing targeted markets like key international financial centers, major economies and the main destination countries for Chinese “going global” companies. Meanwhile, CCB actively partakes in and boosts the development of cross-border RMB business and the offshore market. Currently, CCB has a total of 22 tier-one overseas institutions which are expected to rise to 30 in 2015. CCB’s domestic and overseas institutions have conducted cross-border RMB business valued at over RMB7 trillion for more than 19,000 clients, with an average annual growth rate of over 200%. Offshore RMB products cover wholesale banking, retail banking, investment banking and wealth management.

It is understood that as at the end of 2014, CCB’s total assets stood at RMB16.74 trillion with an annual net profit of RMB228.2 billion. CCB ranked second in the “Top 1000 World Banks” by the UK magazine the Banker, and among the “Forbes Global 2000 Leading Companies” by Forbes magazine.