On April 14, 2015, Qatar Central Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (here and after ICBC) officially announced to launch RMB clearing service in Doha, making it the first RMB clearing bank put into operation in the Middle East area. Earlier, the People’s Bank of China officially authorized ICBC (QFC) Doha Branch to act as a RMB clearing bank on November 4, 2014.

At the launching ceremony, Mr. Jiang Jianqing, the Chairman of ICBC said that the bilateral relations between China and Qatar have made great progress since the establishment of diplomatic relations. China and Qatar have deepened the political mutual trust and achieved fruitful results in cooperation in trade, energy, culture and other areas. As a founding member of AIIB, Qatar plays a positive part in the construction of the “Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”. There are huge potential and broad prospect of cooperation for both. As Qatar’s only Chinese bank, ICBC (QFC) Doha Branch will take the developmental opportunity of RMB clearing bank to accelerate the innovation of RMB products combined with the local market’s needs and provide better financial service for the economic and trade cooperation between China and Qatar.

Founded in Jan, 2008, ICBC (QFC) Doha Branch is the largest commercial bank in QFC, Qatar. Since the launch of RMB clearing service, ICBC (Doha) will gradually offer a series of services including RMB trade financing, overseas loans based on RMB exchange, RMB document /letter guarantee and RMB deposits. Meanwhile, ICBC (QFC) Doha Branch will actively promote offshore RMB business including the issuance of large certificates of deposit, offshore market borrowing and RMB foreign exchange settlement and sale.

ICBC is the largest RMB bank in the world at present. In terms of capital strength, the total RMB assets and settlement business volume of ICBC stay at the first in the world, providing abundant RMB fund sources to customers. In terms of technological system, ICBC integrates its worldwide business outlets through its real-time clearing system of transfer, settlement and clearing as well as its centralized clearing of RMB and foreign currencies, to ensure real time arrival of remittance and transfer. As for global network, so far, the Bank’s overseas network has covered 42 countries and regions, the widest network coverage among Chinese financial institutions. With five RMB clearing banks in Singapore, Luxembourg, Doha, Bangkok and Toronto designated by the Chinese central bank respectively, ICBC has become the first financial institution with RMB clearing banks in Asian, European, and American time zones. Its cross-border RMB clearing network covers 75 countries and regions, forming a global round-the-clock RMB clearing system. In 2014, the cumulative volume of ICBC overseas RMB clearing business exceeded RMB37 trillion, and the cross-border RMB business volume totaled RMB3.66 trillion.