On May 29 local time in Canada, the unveiling ceremony of ICBC (Canada) Montreal Branch was held at the Montreal City Hall of Quebec Province. Jiang Jianqing, Chairman of the Board of the Directors of ICBC, Zhu Mingxuan, General Manager of ICBC (Canada), Zhao Jiangping, Consul General of China to Montreal, Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal City, and Carlos J. Leitão, Minister of Finance of Quebec Province, jointly unveiled the ceremony. This is the ninth branch ICBC (Canada) has set up in Canada.

The year of 2010 witnessed ICBC’s entrance in the Canadian financial market via acquisition of the Bank of East Asia (Canada). At that time, ICBC had founded eight branches in Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver, and Calgary City of Alberta Province. The newly established Montreal Branch will provide all-around financial services covering corporate financing, retail sale, settlement and cash management.

According to Chairman Jiang Jianqing, since entering Canada, ICBC has continued to focused on Chinese-Canadian economic and trade activities. Rooted in Canadian local market, ICBC has constantly innovated and improved its products based on characteristics of both countries’ economy and trade, requirement of financial supervision and management, and customers’ needs, for the purpose of offering better services to economic and trade exchanges between China and Canada and to local customers. Authorized by the People’s Bank of China, ICBC serves as a RMB clearing bank in Toronto, the first of its kind put into operation in North America, building a 24-hour uninterrupted RMB clearing system worldwide. ICBC (Canada) is now on par with its local counterparts in terms of e-banking business and has gradually developed its own features in financial services provided to Chinese, overseas Chinese and Chinese-funded companies. Montreal Branch will help ICBC enhance its cutting edge to become a better financial service supplier for both Canadian and Chinese companies, and at the same time will serve as a bridge that is directly beneficial to Quebec-based companies’ development in China.

As a Chinese-funded financial institution with the widest coverage all over the world, ICBC has recently taken advantage of its group integration and global service network to provide comprehensive financial services to Chinese and foreign economic and trade investment as well as “Going global” of Chinese companies. Now, ICBC has extended its overseas network to cover 42 countries and regions worldwide, and expanded its businesses to 20 African countries via holding shares in Standard Bank of South Africa, building a global service network covering Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, America and Australia.