Two leading banks of the PRC to cooperate to boost “One Belt, One Road” construction

Almaty. August 17. Silkroadnews – The Export-Import Bank of China (Eximbank) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will cooperate to promote “One Belt, One Road” initiative, Xinhua news agency reported.
The day before the Export-Import Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Beijing signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation in facilitating the construction of One Belt, One Road initiative, the report says.
To strengthen the interconnection of infrastructure within the initiative framework, both banks plan to focus on facilitating important projects in important areas and support the accelerated construction of transport corridors and ports in China.
The banks are also said to cooperate to facilitate the subcontractors’ overseas operations by the Chinese enterprises and to support the implementation of projects abroad by leading Chinese metallurgical and cement enterprises, as well as light and manufacturing industries. They are also interested in creating domestic industrial enterprises of various industrial parks abroad.
Two banks will work together to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of relevant projects and develop non-overlapping measures on different countries to avoid risks, the publication notes.
Over 1200 projects throughout the countries along One Belt, One Road route are reported to receive financial support from Eximbank as of the end of June 2017. The total amount of the outstanding debt on loans exceeded 670 billion yuan (around $100 billion).