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ICBC Successfully Organizes the China-Africa B2B Conference
 

On June 28, the day right after the opening ceremony of the First China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo (CAETE), the China-Africa B2B Conference was successfully held in Changsha, Hunan Province. It was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Government of Hunan Province and organized by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC), Standard Bank of South Africa and Department of Commerce of Hunan Province. As the exclusive business-to-business matching platform during the CAETE, it attracted over 230 representatives from African government sectors and enterprises and more than 490 representatives from Chinese counterparts to communicate face to face on cooperation. Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming, Vice Governor of Hunan Province He Baoxiang and ICBC Senior Executive Vice President Hu Hao were present at the event.

Senior Executive Vice President Hu Hao mentioned that the economic and trade investment and cooperation between China and Africa met the respective demand of economic restructuring of the two sides and indicated great potential. ICBC was dedicated to promoting a tightened economic and trade bond between the two sides by tapping into its advantages in investment in Africa, project financing and innovative products. Back in 2008, ICBC acquired 20% equity of Standard Bank of South Africa and realized the strategic connection between China’s largest commercial bank and Africa’s largest local bank. In recent years, ICBC actively put into play its edges in internationalized and integrated financial services to provide financial service for China-Africa cooperation in international settlement, cross-border e-commerce, corporate investment banking, asset custody, financial market and information technology. It also offered specialized and efficient financing support to the bilateral economic and trade investment and cooperation, development of high-speed road network, high-speed railway network and regional airline network as well as industrialization in Africa and local infrastructure construction. By the end of 2018, ICBC had unfolded financing cooperation with nearly 30 African countries and supported more than 100 projects of various types covering road, electricity, oil and gas, minerals and house building.

During the Conference, political and business representatives from China and Africa discussed the new opportunities for development of the bilateral economic and trade cooperation. He Baoxiang pointed out that Hunan’s trade investment in Africa continued to grow by over 50% for four consecutive years and that in the future, the province would greatly promote capacity cooperation with Africa and actively get engaged in construction projects of African countries. Qian Keming and Inspector Zhou Chengjun from Macro-Prudential Management Bureau, the People’s Bank of China, proposed new thoughts and new opportunities on the bilateral economic and trade cooperation respectively from the perspective of macro-economic and trade policies for Africa and opening up of Chinese financial market. Cote d’Ivoire’s Minister of National Entrepreneurship, Crafts and SME Promotion Souleymane Diarrassouba, Burkina Faso’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Crafts Harouna Kabore, Zambian Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Christopher Yaluma and Standard Bank South Africa’s CEO Lungisa Fuzile shared their prediction on the development trend of the economic and trade cooperation and analyzed the direction and implementation paths of the cooperation upgrade in combination with the current economic status and competitive advantages of Africa.

The Conference focused on ten matching industries through the two segments “investment + trade” and the two activities “fixed matching + free matching” to deepen mutual understanding between Chinese and African government and enterprises and facilitate bilateral cooperation in investment, trade and manufacturing. Besides, during the CAETE, ICBC launched innovative products such as China-Africa blockchain letter of guarantee platform to provide financing facility for the bilateral economic and trade cooperation.


(2019-07-22)
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