ICBC adjusts services for expanding firms

China's largest State-owned commercial bank, by assets, is adjusting its financial services, as Chinese companies expanding their business abroad go through a transition from acquisitions of natural resources to technology advancement and industrial upgrading in more diversified countries.

Since the beginning of 2016, most of the Chinese companies going global that are supported by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd have come from high-tech and strategic emerging industries. Statistics from the ICBC show that information technology, high-end consumption and industrial sectors accounted for 66 percent of the number of deals for cross-border M&A conducted via the bank.

"As China has entered the stage of moderate-speed growth, Chinese companies are transforming from scale expansion to quality enhancement and breakthrough innovation. Their demands for high-end technologies, advanced products, core patents and ripe management experience keep increasing along with the demands for overseas asset allocation and the integration of upstream and downstream industry chains," said Li Feng, general manager of the ICBC's investment banking department.