OREANDA-NEWS. December 02, 2013. Bank of China held "Sino-Dutch Financial and Investment Summit" at BOC's headquarters building in Beijing.

Among nearly 50 attendees were Mark Rutte, Dutch Prime Minister; Lilianne Ploumen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands; Aart Jacobi, Dutch Ambassador to China; Chen Xu, Chinese Ambassador to the Netherlands; BOC Chairman Tian Guoli and President Li Lihui; as well as representatives from Chinese and Dutch business and financial fields.

Sino-Dutch bilateral economic and trade cooperation has kept deepening in recent years, said Rutte in a speech. With over 1200 Dutch enterprises in China, the Netherlands has been China's second-largest trade partner in the EU for a decade. Also, with over 400 Chinese enterprises in the Netherlands,China is the Netherlands' second-largest source of foreign capital, BOC has played a significant role in promoting trade and investment between the two countries. China's vigorous economy has brought business opportunities to Dutch enterprises. In the core of the European economy, the Netherlands is innovative and open with diversified culture. Sino-Dutch cooperation has a broad outlook. Hopefully BOC will play a greater role in promoting bilateral economic, trade and investment development.

BOC attaches great importance to the Dutch market and endeavors to build a bridge of investment and business development for enterprises in both countries, BOC Chairman Tian Guoli, said. Particularly, BOC Rotterdam Branch has further intensified BOC's cooperation between Chinese and Dutch enterprises since its establishment. BOC is willing to give further play to its advantage in cross-border finance, to offer Chinese and Dutch entrepreneurs a package of services including information consultation, customer matchmaking, business promotion and financial support, fully supporting Dutch enterprises to develop the Chinese market and help Chinese enterprises ”Go Global”. Also, BOC will give strong support to the construction of the Dutch RMB clearing system to boost the growth of bilateral economic and trade ties as well as the economic development and well-being of the two countries.

The summit is aimed to deepen exchanges between Chinese and Dutch industrial and commercial enterprises and financial institutions, create business opportunities and promote bilateral financial and investment operation to a new level. On behalf of financiers and entrepreneurs of two countries, BOC President Li Lihui; G.J.Dijkstra, Director of APG; Zhang Zhaoxiang, President of Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd. and Camile Eurlings, CEO of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines exchanged ideas on common concerns such as RMB internationalization, overseas enterprise financing and investment environment.

During the summit, BOC signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation with APG and the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency respectively. Under the memorandums, the two sides will carry out reciprocal cooperation in fields like investment management, capital and cross-border assets custody, overseas investment consultation and business information sharing.

To meet the needs of the fast-growing economic and trade association between China and the Netherlands, BOC established a branch in 2007 as the first Chinese financial institution in the Netherlands. Now BOC has been the primary bank for operations of over 150 Chinese enterprises like CNPC, Sinopec, Huawei, Huaneng and HNA in the Netherlands and Europe, has forged partnerships with renowned Dutch enterprises like Shell, Philips, DSM and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and kept close business relationship with Dutch leading banks--ING, Rabobank and ABN AMRO.