OREANDA-NEWS. March 14, 2012. Seoul Branch of Agricultural Bank of China Limited (ABC), the first ABC operating institution in Northeast Asia, was officially opened for business. The establishment of Seoul Branch marks significant progress made by ABC in implementing its overseas development strategy and greatly facilitates the business development in Northeast Asia, thus significantly enhancing the cross-border customer service capability of ABC, reported the press-centre of ABC.

By fully utilizing the huge operational network, extensive customer base and strong financial strength of ABC, Seoul Branch will actively serve the Chinese "going global" companies and local customers, with focus on corporate deposits, bank loans, bilateral loans, trade finance, international settlements and other wholesale businesses. It will also provide quality financial services for the economic and trade exchanges between China and Republic of Korea, bilateral multinational corporations and financial institutions.

With the continued growth of Sino-Korean bilateral trade, enterprises of the two countries have increasingly closer cooperation. In 2011, the bilateral trade amounted to USD220.631 billion, up 17.1% over last year; Republic of Korean direct investment in China was USD2,551 million, ranking 6th among major countries and regions investing in China. The stable growth in trade and investment relations between China and Republic of Korea has laid a solid foundation for their cooperation in the banking sector, and also posed strong demand for high quality and efficient financial services by Chinese banks to bilateral cross-border customers.

Mr. Jiang Chaoliang, Chairman of ABC, said while prioritizing the business development in China, ABC would steadily push forward the internationalization strategy to enhance overseas service capabilities and the collaborative development between domestic and overseas operations. During the process, ABC will devote major efforts to develop relationship with institutions from neighboring countries and regions having promising growth prospects as well as geopolitical and cultural similarity, close economic and trade exchanges with China. Meanwhile, Seoul Branch aims to bridge financial exchanges and cooperation between China and Republic of Korea by actively supporting economic, trade exchanges and economic activities between the two countries.

In recent years, ABC was keenly aware of the trend of internationalization of RMB, corporate customers and financial assets, constantly improved its overseas network layout and steadily promoted the internationalization strategy. Currently, ABC has maintained 10 overseas institutions in 8 countries and regions, and established correspondent bank relationship with 1,365 banks in 111 countries and regions. A global financial services network covering major international financial centers and regions with economic and trade exchanges with ABC has been formed preliminarily. Therefore, the internationalized comprehensive operation capability of ABC has been improved steadily.

Along with its continuous development and growth, ABC has increasing global influence as one of China's four largest banks. In July 2010, it was successfully listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong markets, boasting the largest IPO in the world in terms of fund-raising scale at that time, and became a publicly held bank. In 2011, ABC ranked 127th in the Fortune Global 500, and 14th in The Banker's Top 1000 World Banks in terms of tier-one capital; at the end of 2011, it ranked 5th in the global banking sector by market capitalization.