Recently, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) assisted TCL Group in issuing commercial bills in the US bond market by its strength in global services and with cooperation of Guangdong Branch and New York Branch. The commercial bills with the total amount of USD 200 million were issued in a rolling manner. The initial USD 50 million has been raised. This is the first time for ICBC to provide financing services in the US market by issuing the commercial bills through the correspondent bank, opening up a new channel for enterprises to raise funds in the US market.

USD commercial bills are short-term bills issued in the US bond market. With flexible tenor, favorable price, strong liquidity and few constraints, USD commercial bills are well received among Chinese enterprises, though many enterprises are not able to meet the high rating requirement. Therefore as a bank with global services and high credit rating in the US market, ICBC,enhances enterprises’ credit by issuing the L/C, helping enterprises meet the credit rating requirement and reduce the issuance cost. It is also the first time for TCL Group to directly raise funds in the US bond market by issuing commercial bills.

In recent years, ICBC has actively supported Chinese enterprises going abroad to issue bonds and raise funds overseas and helped them lower the financing costs and improve their financial structures. Statistics show that ICBC has raised the funds totaling around RMB 287 billion by underwriting overseas bonds in 2013 and 2014, ranking the first among Chinese-funded financial institutions in terms of the amount of off-shore RMB bonds and high-yield USD bonds of Chinese-funded enterprises.