On April 20, in the presence of President Xi Jinping and Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif, ICBC Chairman Jiang Jianqing signed power project financing agreements with four Pakistani project owners respectively in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, with the amount totaling USD 4.3 billion. Located along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the four energy power projects, namely Sukhi Kinari hydropower project, Dawood wind power project, Sahiwal coal-fired power plant, and Thar coal-power integrated project in the financing agreements are the major infrastructure projects prioritized by the two sides for the “One Belt and One Road” strategy.

At present, Pakistan is severely plagued by power shortage. The country’s daily power gap is 4 million KW on average. In the peak time of summer, daily power gap is up to 7.5 million KW on average. It has become a bottleneck restraining its economic development. Given that, Pakistan hopes to leverage its abundant wind power and water power resources to enhance supplies and improve energy structure. As the only Chinese commercial bank with a branch in Pakistan, upon learning about the projects, the Bank efficiently developed project financing structure through cooperation between domestic and overseas institutions, accelerated project review and approval, quickly signed financing agreements, and actively advanced launch of the above projects on an early date.

In recent years, by leveraging strength in Group-wide integration and global service network, ICBC has offered all-suite financial service for Chinese enterprises going global and implementation of the “One Belt and One Road” strategy. Currently, ICBC has built a domestic and overseas business network covering countries and territories involved in the national strategy of “One Belt and One Road”. It has 120 branches in 18 countries along the planned area of the “One Belt and One Road” with its financial services basically covering all the planned area. Last year, the Bank supported 73 overseas “One Belt and One Road” projects with the value totaling USD 10.9 billion. Meanwhile, the Bank also stocked in advance more than 130 key projects with positive business outlook related to the “One Belt and One Road” programme with an investment of USD 158.8 billion. Those projects involve industries such as electric power, transport, oil and gas, minerals, telecommunications, machinery, industrial park construction, agriculture and basically cover all key “Going Global” industries. As for the future financing demands from the “One Belt and One Road” as well as the infrastructure construction and investment and interconnection in Asia Pacific, the Bank is also making overall plans and preparing financial solutions in advance.