The Grand Opening of China Construction Bank (London) Limited---CCB’s first fully-owned subsidiary in Europe

     China Construction Bank (London) Limited (“CCB London”) – China Construction Bank Corporation’s (“CCB”) fully owned subsidiary in the United Kingdom was officially launched on the first of June 2009. Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom Fu Ying, Minister of Economic and Business of United Kingdom Ian Pearson , CCB Chairman Guo Shuqing, CCB Vice President Fan Yifei , CCB Controller of Investment and Wealth Management Banking Mao Yumin and around local 200 guests attended the opening gala dinner. CCB London is CCB’s first wholly-owned subsidiary in Europe, and the second operating institution in Europe. It not only complements CCB’s global financial service network, but also symbolizes the further consolidation of CCB’s global strategy.

     Located in the City of London, CCB (London) is to provide banking businesses including corporate deposit, loan, trade finance, commodity finance and hedging, Sterling Pound clearing, treasury, etc. As a business platform to UK, CCB (London) strives to provide high quality service to customers engaged in Sino-UK trade, multinational enterprises and financial institutions, with the strong support of CCB’s funding base, network and technology.

     With the trade volume between the U.K. and China amounting USD 60 billion in 2008, China has become the third largest source of imports for the U.K. The establishment of CCB London not only corresponds to the development trend of the two countries’ trade and economy exchange but also meets the requirements of strengthening bilateral cooperation against the global financial crisis. London as the international financial center has long been the important target of CCB’s overseas business expansion. CCB could improve the services to global customers by leveraging advantage of the London’s developed financial market, full range of financial products, abundant financial information, and active Sino-UK investment and trade activities.

    CCB is traditionally a specialized bank on infrastructure lending, and nowadays the sectors it serves have far exceeded engineering and construction industry. As a bank with most comprehensive service capabilities in China, CCB is the market leader in wholesale, retail and investment banking business. CCB is commonly recognized in China as the leading bank for infrastructure financing, the largest bank for personal housing mortgage and also the bank with the largest number of ATMs in the world. CCB maintained, among the big four Chinese domestic banks, the lowest NPL ratio, the highest NIM, and the highest fee-based business growth rate. In 2008, CCB’s return-on-assets and return-on-equity ranked the first among all the large banks worldwide, while its total market value and net profit rank the second. By the end of the first quarter of 2009, the total asset of CCB is 1268.982 billion US dollars (RMB 8674.633 billion), with the NPL ratio of 1.9%, coverage ratio of 141.8% and Q1 net profit of 3.844 billion US dollars (RMB26.276 billion).

    As stated by Mr. Guo Shuqing, Chairman of China Construction Bank, CCB will continue to actively while prudently deploy its overseas business strategy and to optimize its overseas operation layout, will perceive world market information, learn from peers practices, will make efforts on innovation while sticking to principles of prudence and compliance, so as to provide excellent globalized financial services to customers, to facilitate the trade, investment, financial cooperation and exchanges between China and the U.K., and to continuously progress toward the strategic vision of “becoming a world-class bank” .