OREANDA-NEWS. August 12, 2013. In recent years, ICBC executes a policy to serve real economy and follow customers to "go global". A full range of convenient, highly-efficient financial services is provided for top Chinese companies to compete internationally. For the period ending June this year, ICBC has extended USD 15.8 billion in loans to 79 "go global" projects, helping many Chinese companies to spread their wings in 40+ countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, America and Australia.

According to an executive with the Bank, as Chinese companies gather pace to go overseas, there is a huge demand for diversified, integrated services such as corporate finance, investment banking and financial intermediary besides conventional services like deposit, loan and settlement. Among all commercial banks in China, ICBC was the first to provide export credit facility in 2002. Subsequently, ICBC rolled out a range of "go global" products such as resources-backed structured finance, cross-border M&A finance, international syndication, overseas project finance, loans for overseas engineering contracts, offshore financing against standby L/C issued by ICBC branches in China, cross-border RMB loan. At present, ICBC can offer over 20 different types of loans for "go global" companies in dozens of industries, including electricity, telecom, transportation, construction, oil and gas, coal, mineral ore, new energy and manufacturing.

Meanwhile, ICBC also offers financial services tailored to employees of Chinese companies investing overseas. "Scheduled Remittance" is a service for them to remit family maintenance allowance to China on a regular basis. The service combines "Remittance settled in advance" (a competitive service offered by ICBC branches outside China) and "Schedule" function. Customers can now use the service to remit money to China, in fixed periods with amount specified using exchange rate agreed. In this way, customers save the cost of currency exchange, and save the time without running to the bank to remit money.

ICBC builds up its presence overseas with a focus on aligning with the globalization of China economy and companies. With about 400 branches outside China, ICBC is now operating in 39 countries/territories. Being the largest shareholder of the Standard Bank of South Africa (a major bank in Africa) to build a presence in the financial markets of 18 African countries, ICBC has set up a large global financial service network. While looking for "go global" opportunities for Chinese companies, ICBC branches in and outside can join force to offer a range of services for Chinese companies to spread their wings beyond domestic border, backed by an extensive service network and a large base of overseas customers.