On April 20 (local time in Pakistan), Chinese President Xi Jinping who was on a state visit to Pakistan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif jointly inaugurated ICBC Lahore Branch, marking the official launch of the Lahore Branch. So far, ICBC has already set up three institutions separately in Pakistan’s Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore, further strengthening its position in Pakistan’s financial market.

Head of ICBC Lahore Branch said that China-Pakistan friendship remains unshakable and becomes even firmer as time goes by. Pakistan is China’s good neighbor, good friend, good partner and good brother. Pakistan-China all-weather strategic partnership enjoys popular support. Since the establishment of China-Pakistan diplomatic relations over 60 years ago, the two countries have made obvious achievements in cooperating in fields such as infrastructure construction, energy development, and people-to-people exchanges. As the only Chinese commercial bank setting institutions in Pakistan, ICBC has actively implemented the “One Belt and One Road” strategy, supported construction of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and completed financing for projects such as Sachal wind power project, Dawood wind power project, Sukhi-Kinari hydro power project, and Sahiwal coal fired power project, in succession, in the amount of USD4.3 billion in total, showing that the Bank has made a contribution to promoting economic and social development in Pakistan.

Located in the intersection of overseas lines of the “One Belt and One Road”, Pakistan is an important country in South Asia and also the sixth largest populous country in the world. After the China-Pakistan economic corridor is built, it can hold countries in South Asia, Central Asia, North Africa, and the Gulf together closely by cooperation in economic and energy fields to form economic resonance. Meanwhile, it can also strengthen Pakistan’s strategic position as a bridge and bond linking Eurasia and African continent, which is of important significance to advancing construction of “One Belt and One Road” initiatives. In recent years, bilateral economic and trade, and investment between China and Pakistan have developed fast. In 2014, China-Pakistan bilateral trade value totaled USD16.006 billion, up 12.57% year on year. China’s direct investment in Pakistan jumped 739.4% year on year. China has become the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) source of Pakistan. During President Xi Jinping’s just-ended state visit to Pakistan, the two sides signed cooperation agreements worth USD46 billion, marking that economic and trade cooperation between China and Pakistan is entering a new development stage and gradually forms a wide-ranging, multi-layered and all-dimensional cooperation situation, and implying that the two countries will embrace bigger development opportunities.

The increasingly close economic and trade exchanges as well as investment between China and Pakistan have laid a good foundation for the Bank’s development in Pakistan. Lahore Branch is located in Punjab Province, the most economically developed province in Pakistan. The economic aggregate of Punjab Province accounts for more than 60% of the Pakistan’s economic aggregate, while that of Lahore city accounts for 40% of the Punjab Province. With implementation of the “One Belt and One Road” strategy, Lahore is becoming one of the most hot-spot cities for Chinese enterprises’ investment. ICBC Lahore Branch will provide domestic investors with more convenient and secure investment channels and much efficient financial services.

In recent years, ICBC has taken the initiative to adapt to customers’ demands for diversified financial services, firmly followed up China’s foreign trade and investment progress to improve its overseas layout, and seen an obvious increase in its capability of offering global services. So far, the Bank's overseas network has covered 42 countries and regions. It has become a Chinese financial institution with the widest network coverage in the world at present. The share-holding in the Standard Bank in South Africa enables the Bank to indirectly reach 20 African countries. The Bank has built a global service network spanning Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe,  America, and Australia. The number of the Bank’s foreign correspondent banks, as an important supplement to its global network, has exceeded 1,800 and those correspondent banks are in more than 95% of the countries and regions having investment and trade exchanges with China.