On June 19, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, or the Bank) issued the Declaration of Action on Financial Support for the Demonstration Zone for the Eco-friendly and Integrated Development of the Yangtze River Delta (hereinafter the “Declaration of Action”), in which it plans to provide no less than RMB300 billion of intentional investment and financing support for enterprises and individuals stationed in the demonstration zone in the next five years, in a bid to provide all-round financial services for the integrated and high-quality development of the demonstration zone. Meanwhile, ICBC also released a cross-border dealmaking service program - “ICBC Dealmaker”, to further raise its ability to serve the third China International Import Expo.

The Declaration of Action under the new concept of building the demonstration zone into an “eco-friendly, collaborative and innovative bellwether, leading reform and demonstration”, aims to further enhance integrated financial innovation and to streamline cross-regional business process. Regarding to system building, ICBC plans to set up a joint meeting mechanism for its branches in the Yangtze River Delta, to strengthen overall coordination of key priorities in the demonstration zone. ICBC will simplify the approval process for cross-region syndicated business within the Bank in the Delta, and carry out integrated due diligence and evaluation to better serve the development of major cross-region projects. In terms of green finance, ICBC actively participates in the construction of green development project pool in the demonstration zone, and steps up support for key projects in the green field through new models and new products, such as green loans and green bonds. With regard to financial innovation, ICBC promotes account opening at attended distributed intelligent terminal, cross-region agency services via ICBC and non-local attestation services, boosts the integrated development of settlement within the demonstration zone, and innovates non-local mortgage service and cross-region joint credit services to achieve efficient flow of credit resources within the region. On open finance, ICBC builds a cross-border cooperation platform, continues to hold high-quality cross-border dealmaking activities, and creates an intelligent dealmaking platform and a digital corporate community. In addition, ICBC renders new cross-border financial services, combining “onshore - cross-border - offshore” to large corporate groups stationed in the demonstration zone. As to public utilities, ICBC creates an integrated package of “government affairs + financial support” service tailoring to the demonstration zone, to help promote mobile payment service, thus realizing payment integration on transportation, health care, education, the aged caring, tourism and other public services in the demonstration zone. ICBC also provides such services as smart accounts to individual customers in the demonstration zone.

“ICBC Dealmaker”, ICBC’s cross-border dealmaking service, is an open platform for enterprises at home and abroad to releasing their demands, which facilitates cooperation on cargo, service, technology, project and capital by holding cross-border dealmaking activities both online and offline. The platform also provides firms with all-round cross-border services integrating commerce, intelligence and finance, and brings them into a global intelligent eco-business community.

It is reported that, the 2,300-km2 Demonstration Zone includes Qingpu district of Shanghai, Wujiang district of Jiangsu province and Jiashan county of Zhejiang province, playing an exemplary and leading role in the higher-quality and integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region. ICBC issued an action plan to support the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta in 2019, in order to strengthen the coordinated development strategy and boost the integrated development of the region. So far, ICBC has more than 3,000 branches in the region, offering all-around financial services to 140 million individual customers and nearly 2 million corporate clients. The balance of various loans granted in the region exceeded RMB3.6 trillion, and the accumulative investment in local government bonds amounted to RMB640 billion, both ranking first in the market. What’s more, the bank also sets up two financial service centers at the Head Office level for high-tech start-ups, and six sub-branches featured by new economy in the region, to help build a collaborative innovation industrial system.