The Bank of China at European Business Summit 2015

Written by He Liqin, General Manager of Bank of China (Luxembourg) S.A. Brussels Branch

At this wonderful season when nature wakes up, I am glad to come together with our Belgian friends coming from the industry as well as from commercial areas, to enhance our mutual understanding through a deeper communication.

As China’s most internationalized commercial bank, Bank of China set up its London branch in 1929, which was the first overseas branch of Bank of China. After that, we have opened branches in financial centers all over the world, such as Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, Frankfurt, etc… Giving full play to the advantages arising from our international operations, we continuously expand the functionality of our global cash management platform in order to provide efficient, convenient and secure global cash management services to our customers. Our financial services have been extended to 41 countries and regions across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa and the America.

We committed to promote China-EU economic and trading development and to be the platform for Chinese “going-out” enterprises, to act as a bridge between Chinese and European corporate. Meanwhile, as China has become one of the biggest blooming markets, we are willing to support the  European and Belgium corporates to develop themselves in China. Bank of China (Luxembourg) S.A Brussels Branch was founded in 2010. In the past five years, our target was to become a local bank through an in-depth integration into the local market, our asset size and the number of our clients has grown rapidly.

Looking ahead, we are confident of the development of China-EU economic and trade relations and our Branch’s progress in the Belgian market.

Firstly, China and EU are viewing each other as international strategic partners. Being the two major markets, the two fabulous civilizations, China and EU are the important forces to promote a worldwide common development.

Secondly, as we all know, China and EU are both at a critical stage of their development and reform, we are committed to share opportunities and seek for a common development.

In Europe, Mr. Junker’s giant investment plan, which is regarded as the EU’s new deal, will come up with a list of projects that would start between 2015 and 2017. Meanwhile, the Chinese government put forward ideas and initiatives with development of the “Silk Road Economic Belt”, referred to as “One Belt One Road”. We will actively serve the pragmatic cooperation in economic and financial fields. The budget of the Bank of China Group to support the “One belt one road” related projects is 20 billion USD for this year and will reach to 100 billion USD in the future three years.

With the support of both, Chinese and Belgian macroeconomic policy, we hope that we can work with local enterprises as well as with local financial institutions more deeply, to develop projects financing and to support commercial exchanges via the trade financing, etc…

Thirdly, we are fully focused on the RMB internationalization and are continuously consolidating our market position on the main business channels.

In 2014, the Bank of China Group fulfilled a volume of USD 3.92 trillion on the international settlement market, maintaining its global leading position. Cross-border RMB clearing business amounted to RMB 240.8 trillion, a year-to-year increase of 86.6%, continuing to lead our global peers. Having set up RMB clearing services in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Bank now also serves as the RMB clearing bank in Frankfurt, Paris, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, with a view to further enhance our global RMB clearing network. Recently the Bank successfully issued the “Oceania Bond” in Sydney, the “Schengen Bond” in Luxembourg and the “Arc de Triomphe Bond” in Paris, and assisted the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada in issuing the RMB-denominated sovereign bonds, receiving a positive response from the markets.

As the RMB became the world’s second-largest trade and financial currency, the seventh-largest payment currency and the ninth-largest trading currency, there has been RMB cross-border payment in 222 countries and regions across the world. With the support of our global RMB financing network, we are sure that we can provide convenient RMB financing and clearing services for Belgian corporates to avoid risks of exchange rate, to improve capital efficiency, to save transactions’ costs, and to gain on the internationalization of the RMB.

Now, as we meet in the beginning of the year in China, there’s an old saying that “A year’s plan starts with spring and a day’s plan starts with the morning”. Chinese take spring as the most important season to work on the whole year’s plan, and the most important part of our plan is you, our clients.

Based on our international operations’ network and our professional business supporting teams in China, we believe we will do our best to satisfy our clients’ need, and we are looking forward to cooperate with you on your needs of financing and cash management services.

Wish you have a nice day and a wonderful year ahead!

About the author

Madame He Liqin is the General Manager of Bank of China (Luxembourg) S.A. Brussels Branch

Madame He Liqin is the General Manager of Bank of China (Luxembourg) S.A. Brussels Branch. She has 19 years’ experience in Bank of China corporate banking business sector. Her education background, Master of Economics, gave her a critical thinking, keen insight and good judgment of the Macroeconomic and Business environment. She succeeded in financing many international enterprises and well-known projects in China and overseas market, such as CNOOCSHELL, SOUTHERNPEC, VEOLIA(CNH financing). After 3 years European working experience as the Assistant General Manager of Bank of China Paris Branch, Madame He Liqin becomes an expert of European and Chinese banking business, as well as specialist of Sino-European economy and business development. Since she arrived in Belgium, she has been focused on promoting Sino-Belgian economy and business development, providing financing services to Belgian and Chinese companies and helping them to expand their market in other country. 

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