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CDB opens first Egypt office

By Zhang Jiawei (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-11-12 18:04

China Development Bank (CDB), the State-run bank for public works projects, opened its first representative office in Egypt's capital Cairo Tuesday after more than one year of preparations, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Thursday.

The Cairo office would act as a platform promoting comprehensive cooperation between CDB and Egypt and other African countries, Li Jiping, vice president of the lender, was cited by the newspaper as saying.

The main focus of the cooperation would be infrastructure construction, resource exploitation, agriculture and livelihood of the people, Li said.

Besides establishing the China-Africa Development Fund to encourage Chinese firms to invest in Africa, the CDB would also help promote employment by financing small and medium-sized enterprises in Africa through providing special loans, according to Li.

The CDB has financed 27 projects totaling $2.15 billion in 18 African countries as of the end of September this year, the newspaper said. In Egypt, the CDB has also made its presence in syndicated loans to support the construction of the Suez zone.

As a major policy lender, the CDB has maintained widespread cooperation with banks in Egypt. Setting up the Cairo office is being seen as the result of the consensus between governments of China and Egypt and would encourage Chinese commercial banks’ investments in Africa.

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"Chinese commercial banks would prefer to cooperate with a policy financial institution in financing Chinese enterprises' big projects in Africa to control risk,"an unnamed person in charge of African businesses of a big State-owned commercial bank was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The lender has been preparing to make itself internationalized for a long time. It set up the first overseas branch in Hong Kong on July 29 this year in a bid to provide mainland companies with access to the international market. It also plans to launch other overseas offices in the next five to ten years, according to earlier reports by China Daily.

The CDB also plans to open offices in Russia this year and Brazil next year, with branches in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro respectively as part of its strategy to become an international lender, China Daily said earlier.