Asiamoney New Silk Road Finance Awards
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The Middle East and Africa boast some of the largest investment flows from China globally, and so far Chinese state-owned banks have dominated the funding needs of Belt and Road projects in the region.
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This wasn’t the biggest Belt and Road transaction on the table this year in southeast Asia – far from it. China does a lot of business in the Asean region, much of it in the shape of big-ticket oil and gas, mining, transport and telecoms deals.
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Many of the big cross-border financing deals HSBC does for its big corporate customers in southeast Asia should come with the letters ‘BRI’ pre-stamped on them. The bank is a powerhouse in the region, but more importantly, its sophisticated financial expertise so often seems to match and overlap, with eerie precision, exactly what China is trying to do with BRI.
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So often, Maybank is a bank of firsts, at least where the Belt and Road Initiative is concerned.
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Siam Commercial Bank emerges as a worthy winner of this award. The Bangkok-based lender is an important regional financial partner for China and for mainland firms, small and large.
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It is the depth and the weight of Standard Chartered’s BRI-related deal list over the last year that tips the scales in favour of the emerging market-focused lender.
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CICC has become a go-to bank for Chinese and other corporations looking to raise money via the capital markets along the Belt and Road. Beyond greater China, its stronghold is southeast Asia, where in recent years it has quietly become a deal machine.
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Year after year, Bangkok Bank quietly goes about getting business done. In the context of this award, it is a force for innovation and for good, its five full-service branches in China (in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Xiamen) helping it to play a big role for Beijing’s biggest corporations and lenders in and across southeast Asia.
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At $72 million, the winning project is definitely not the largest Belt and Road Initiative-related transaction in the region over the last year. But its complexity and its value, which really emerges only with the benefit of hindsight, truly resonate.
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Under its president and chief executive Muhammad Aurangzeb, Habib Bank has been transformed. It is among the most important non-Chinese banks – with Citi, Standard Chartered and HSBC – involved in the construction of the long and winding Belt and Road.
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Under its president and chief executive Muhammad Aurangzeb, Habib Bank has been transformed. It is among the most important non-Chinese banks – with Citi, Standard Chartered and HSBC – involved in the construction of the long and winding Belt and Road.
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Under its president and chief executive Muhammad Aurangzeb, Habib Bank has been transformed. It is among the most important non-Chinese banks – with Citi, Standard Chartered and HSBC – involved in the construction of the long and winding Belt and Road.
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In many ways this was a breakout year for Citi and its relationships with the Belt and Road Initiative. Under the watch of Beibei Li, head of banking and origination for Belt and Road, the US lender figured out how to use its vast international network to serve clients in China that are keen to up their investments across the region.
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One of the less-mentioned shifts in the Belt and Road Initiative over the last few years has been in the ability of mainland lenders and corporates to adapt to a complex and ever-changing world.
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Standard Chartered is big in the Middle East, specializing in exactly the kind of heavy lifting – chunky loans, local bank accounts, foreign exchange, supply chain solutions – that Chinese firms most keenly need when they set out to fund projects along the Belt and Road, but which are very often in short supply.
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HSBC’s capital markets team is at the top of its game in the Middle East. It is the go-to lender of choice for any Chinese firm looking not simply to raise capital along the Belt and Road, but also to access the kind of sophisticated financial solutions that can only be provided by a handful of global lenders.
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What an interesting financial institution Banque Misr is. Under the leadership of its chairman, Mohamed El-Etreby, the Egyptian lender has long been a clear regional leader in corporate and social responsibility. But in recent years it has spotted the benefits of being a localized power player on the Belt and Road scene, and has taken steps to put itself at the heart of the project.
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HSBC is head and shoulders above its peers in this award – as it should be. The UK-headquartered institution is the leading foreign lender in China and a powerhouse in the Middle East: in Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence 2020, it was awarded best investment bank for the region, as well as best bank for sustainable finance and for transaction services.
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Not for nothing is Bank of China still widely viewed as the country’s most outward-facing bank. It’s the country’s oldest extant lender and was the first mainland financial institution to boast a branch in the Middle East – a rep office in Bahrain that opened its doors to business back in 2004.
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First Abu Dhabi Bank’s key strength in the context of this award is not just its robust credit rating, standing at AA- from Fitch and S&P, and Aa3 from Moody’s – although that matters. Nor is it the bank’s implicit government backing – although that matters too.
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VTB, which is led by president and chairman Andrey Kostin, is the only Russian bank with a full financial licence to conduct banking operations in mainland China. It is also planning to open a new office in Shanghai’s financial district this June as business expands.
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As China’s leading investment bank, CICC has long proved its worth when it comes to executing deals for mainland clients and helping them tap the global investor base.
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Credit Bank of Moscow has made progress in the last year when it comes to boosting its focus on China and the Belt and Road Initiative.
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Citi’s reach in Central and Eastern Europe, and Central and West Asia is impressive.
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Located at the heart of Central Asia, Uzbekistan is a key pillar along the Silk Road. Chinese officials appear to have realized its strategic importance more than 2,000 years ago, when trade relations between the two countries were first established.
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VTB, which is led by president and chairman Andrey Kostin, is the only Russian bank with a full financial licence to conduct banking operations in mainland China. It is also planning to open a new office in Shanghai’s financial district this June as business expands.
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China International Capital Corp is known for its rigorous research on the Belt and Road Initiative. This year, the firm’s research department, led by chief economist Peng Wensheng, doubled down on its bottom-up research approach, even in the shadow of the pandemic.
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Citi has set itself apart from its international peers thanks to its growing dedication to the Belt and Road Initiative this year, building an enviable portfolio of landmark BRI projects.
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The seed of this eye-catching project was planted when Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Peru in November 2016. During Xi’s visit, China Three Gorges Corp (CTG) signed an agreement with the Peruvian ministry of energy, agreeing to collaborate in the renewable energy industry. After that, the Chinese company began a series of investments in Peru, paving the way for this landmark acquisition.
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Despite being nicknamed ‘bank of the universe’ by Chinese bankers because of its sheer size and wide client reach onshore, ICBC has a surprising reputation for being low key. Its belt-and-road effort is no exception. The bank has made little attempt to market itself as a BRI bank but by the end of June this year, ICBC had supported more than 400 BRI projects and provided more than $100 billion of loans.
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What does the coronavirus mean for the Belt and Road Initiative? The BRI scheme is defined by the global transfer of financial and physical capital, labour and increasingly deeper relationships between people from vastly different places. How can it survive at a time when global travel has been brought to a virtual standstill?
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One of the less-mentioned shifts in the Belt and Road Initiative over the last few years has been in the ability of mainland lenders and corporates to adapt to a complex and ever-changing world.
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With a track record of more than 160 years of operations in China and 150 years in the Middle East and Africa, Standard Chartered is ideally placed to foster connections between the regions in the Belt and Road Initiative.
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Supporting the Belt and Road Initiative globally is a strategic priority for HSBC – and the bank’s deep roots in Asia make it a natural partner for governments and firms looking to enhance their integration with the project.
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Banque Misr wins the award for best local bank in the Middle East and Africa for BRI for the second year in a row by virtue of its impressive commitment to promoting trade and financing flows between China and the region.
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Citi is ideally placed to support Belt and Road trade and initiatives across the region given its presence in 24 countries in the Middle East and Africa and its strong track record in Asia.
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Agricultural Bank of China is playing an increasingly important role in promoting Belt and Road objectives in the United Arab Emirates. China’s third-largest bank opened its second Middle Eastern branch in Dubai in May 2017. The new operation acts as a renminbi clearing centre for the UAE, as well as to offer financial services, including trade finance and syndicated loans, to local companies.
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First Abu Dhabi Bank consolidated its position as the leading Middle Eastern bank for Belt and Road financing during the awards period from 2018 to 2019.
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Created in 2012 by the Belarusian government with the support of policymakers in Beijing, Great Stone Industrial Park is the largest international industrial park with Chinese investment and a cornerstone of Belarus’s commitment to the Belt and Road project.
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The expansion of Minsk National Airport is a crucial part of local policymakers’ drive to position Belarus at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko officially opened the second runway at Minsk National Airport in May. The new facility, which took three years to complete and was built using state-of-the-art technology, is big enough to accommodate the largest commercial aircraft and doubles the airport’s capacity for passenger traffic.
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Belarus has been an important partner for China in central and eastern Europe for nearly two decades, and the level of cooperation has intensified since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. This in turn has created an increasing need for financial services to support rapidly expanding trade, economic and tourism links between the two countries.
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With the inauguration last year of Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), Kazakhstan is rapidly emerging as a hub for Belt and Road financing, as well as for transportation. China International Capital Corporation (CICC) has positioned itself at the heart of this initiative and as a key conduit for Chinese investment and financing into Kazakhstan. In 2017, the bank signed a strategic cooperation agreement with AIFC to provide advice on the development of local capital markets and technical support for Astana’s new stock exchange.
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ICBC became the first Chinese bank to open a subsidiary in Vienna in May this year, to promote cooperation between China and Austria and serving as a gateway to central and eastern Europe (CEE).
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China International Capital Corp’s research on the Belt and Road Initiative is comprehensive, rigorous and most importantly, honest.
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No other international bank commits to the Belt and Road Initiative as HSBC does.
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Kazakhstan is at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative, both geographically and strategically. The project was first announced by China’s president, Xi Jinping, in the country’s capital Nur-Sultan in 2013; two of the six trade corridors pass through the country.
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Citi’s presence in 105 of the Belt and Road countries – particularly in Europe and Latin America – puts it in a perfect position to connect Chinese clients.
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For Chinese banks, the Belt and Road Initiative has long gone beyond simply providing funding for overseas infrastructure projects. In the process of redefining the project, Bank of China is contributing its own understanding of BRI as a Chinese bank.
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When awards like these are being handed out, HSBC should, just by dint of its long history and presence in China and southeast Asia, be a perennial contender. Yet any lender, whatever its size and history, still has to do the legwork, a fact that the UK-based bank knows full well.
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Maybank has been consistently successful at inserting itself into local and regional BRI deals.
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Siam Commercial Bank has built strong and sturdy links with Chinese lenders and corporates, working hard to ensure it is a key conduit in bilateral trade in general, and in local BRI deals.
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No one in southeast Asia can hold a candle to Standard Chartered, the only international bank present in all 10 Asean markets, and with a history in the region that stretches back 150 years.
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This award, while hotly contested, only really had possible one winner. Under its chairman, Gao Ming, Hong Kong-based ICBC (Asia) – which is a subsidiary of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China – has become a regional powerhouse in syndicated lending in a remarkably short space of time.
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DBS’s importance to the Belt and Road Initiative becomes more apparent every year. Over the last 12 months, the Singapore-based lender provided financial advice and services to five projects backed by mainland corporates in three BRI countries.
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Chances are, when you stumble upon a sizeable China-backed deal to invest in infrastructure in Pakistan, Habib Bank Ltd is involved. The Karachi-based financial institution, Pakistan’s largest lender by assets, wins plaudits and prizes this year, courtesy of a $520 million lignite coal-based power project in Sindh province. The deal was signed in December 2018 and the project will be built by Thar Energy, a consortium run by chief executive Saleemullah Memon, and comprising Hub Power Company, which owns 60% of the plant, local chemicals firm Fauji Fertiliser and China Machinery & Engineering Corporation.
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Many international banks start pitches for awards by extolling their unrivalled understanding of local markets. HSBC is one of the few that lives up to the boast. Across south Asia, it had a leading role in a slew of BRI deals. In Sri Lanka, it acted as sole mandated lead arranger, lender and agent on a $72 million, Sinosure-supported facility to finance the upgrading of hospitals in Sri Lanka.
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In essence, the BRI is little more than a big and ambitious country’s outward-facing trade policy, which happens to hit more Asian economies than it misses. Each year it grows and matures. Perhaps the key BRI change over the last year has been India’s tentative embrace of the project. Standard Chartered’s pitch for this award is evidence of India’s wary but undeniable acceptance that the BRI is a long-term reality that it can no longer afford to ignore.
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Few lenders were quicker to spot the benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative than Habib Bank Ltd. Over the last decade, HBL has been Beijing’s go-to financial partner in Pakistan, and a vital player in its efforts to draw south Asia tightly into its economic and financial orbit.
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Standard Chartered spotted the benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative from the start. With 160 years of experience in China and 150 years of history in south Asia – where it is present in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with 250 branches and 14,000 employees – StanChart saw from the outset that it and the BRI were a natural fit.
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Bank of China (BOC) has been at the forefront of BRI projects in south Asia, and a regional pioneer among mainland banks. Over the last three years, it has pitched for these awards several times, relying on its presence in a host of deals such as the 10-year, $700 million syndicated term loan raised for Pakistan’s finance ministry in December 2017. BOC was a key player in that deal, which secured partial guarantees from the World Bank.
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When Cosco Shipping International (Singapore) announced its intention to buy Cogent Holdings, the deal made not only great practical sense, but also served to underline the speed with which the Belt and Road Initiative has become an integral part of the financial and commercial world.
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Being present at the creation of the Belt and Road Initiative must be like life at the start of the internet. Everyone knew it would be huge – but it wasn’t clear at first what that really meant.
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HSBC’s history in China and southeast Asia stretches back to the latter part of the 19th Century. And while experience doesn’t count for everything, it counts for quite a bit in this case. No lender has surely been more effective at finding, funding and facilitating belt-and-road deals in southeast Asia.
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Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) consistently puts itself in a strong position to serve both Chinese companies expanding into Thailand and local firms making the return journey.
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To all China-based lenders, the Belt and Road Initiative is serious business. But few have poured so much of their labours and resources into promoting BRI-related projects at all levels as ICBC (Asia).
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United Overseas Bank’s regional ambitions were underlined in April when the Singapore lender priced a three-year, renminbi-denominated bond, raising S$208.6 million ($150 million). The bond issue, which was oversubscribed 2.86 times, was the first financial bond printed in China by a southeast Asian institution using Beijing’s Bond Connect scheme, which gives foreign investors access to the mainland’s debt markets.
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Standard Chartered is tailor-made for China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The bank, which has a strong focus on emerging markets, opened its first branch in Shanghai in 1858, and in Singapore and Hong Kong a year later. It has a footprint in all 10 Asean nations, with 26 branches in Indonesia, 27 offices in Thailand, and more than 40 in Malaysia, not to mention a presence in 28 cities in mainland China.
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This award was keenly contested. Standard Chartered deserves credit for being appointed escrow agent on the construction of the new Nepal International Airport, funded by a $216 million loan from Export-Import Bank of China. And Credit Suisse stands out for its $65.1 million term loan to Housing Development Corporation, a state-owned Maldivian firm, which will finance the construction of 7,000 social housing units on the sprawling island chain that sits at the heart of the Maritime Silk Road.
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HBL is the standout winner of this award, for four connected reasons. First, because HBL is the biggest bank in Pakistan. Second, it’s the biggest provider of infrastructure financing in Pakistan. Third, it is clearly China’s most-trusted local commercial banking partner in south Asia – see our award for best regional bank of the year for BRI. And fourth, because Pakistan is the beating heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative – no country has benefited more, or bought in so deeply, to president Xi Jinping’s vision of a new geopolitical trade map that starts in China, but ends up pretty much anywhere in Africa, Europe or Asia.
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No lender in south Asia can compete with Standard Chartered’s scale, strength, pocketbook and willingness to go the extra yard for its clients. Over the last year, it has done more complex regional deals that use Chinese money, involve mainland corporates and enhance and expand the New Silk Road project than any of its peers.
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When assessing the winners of this award, one bank stood well above the rest. Standard Chartered’s credentials in south Asia are irrefutable. The bank has more than 150 years of history and a hefty on-the-ground presence in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with 250 branches in all and 14,000-plus employees. Since the idea of a New Silk Road was floated in 2013 by Chinese president Xi Jinping, StanChart has worked assiduously to make the project work for its clients.
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South Asia is vital to the New Silk Road. But it can be a tough region in which to do business. Its powerhouse sovereign, India, is wary of the project, while Pakistan, desperate for capital, is often beset by political turbulence. In this context, China needs a determined, committed and well-capitalized home-grown lender, capable of driving the geopolitical project of the century.
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Does Beijing have a better regional commercial banking partner in south Asia than HBL? It’s hard to imagine who they might be. The Karachi-listed bank, Pakistan’s largest by assets, has completely bought into the Belt and Road Initiative. It was the first Pakistan lender to initiate China coverage in 2013, at branches in three cities: Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. China, in turn, has garlanded it with praise and handed out new branch licences at, by Beijing’s usual standards, warp speed.
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China’s maritime Silk Road relies heavily on access to the Suez Canal, so it is not surprising that soon after the BRI was announced in 2013, work began on a multi-billion-dollar upgrade of the canal.
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Local excellence set within the framework of a would-be global development programme that a) is still evolving and b) whose ultimate ambition remains nebulous, is not easy to achieve. But get the right institution, staffed by a group of experienced managers with ambition, capital, gumption and the spirit of adventure, and it can be done. For proof, look at the example set by Green Delta Capital, a seven-year-old boutique investment bank located in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka. Overseen by chief executive and managing director Rafiqul Islam, GDC has grown steadily, structuring and arranging, since 2011, $750 million-worth of onshore transactions and helping Bangladesh firms raise $88 million-worth of fresh equity.
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Since its inception in 2013, BRI crept into various sectors and countries in the Middle East and Africa. But at the heart of China’s engagement with Africa remains infrastructure. Demolishing dilapidated transport routes – relics of Africa’s colonial past – and replacing them with shiny new railway lines, roads and ports not only boosts China’s trade with Africa and Europe, but also has the potential to transform Africa’s development.
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It is a familiar adage: China is known for its insatiable hunger for fossil fuels, so governments in the Middle East and Africa, awash with oil and gas, keep China fuelled, in return, China provides cheap financing for infrastructure development.
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First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has built up a number of high-level Chinese clients looking to take advantage of its strong presence in the Middle East and its growing authority in Asia. The bank’s list of clients includes China State Construction Bank, China’s state-owned chemical company ChemChina and Jinko Solar, which is the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer and is headquartered in Shanghai.
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HSBC’s global network and expertise around BRI makes the bank this year’s winner for the best international bank in the Middle East and Africa for BRI.
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The renminbi is fast becoming a global currency and its use in the Middle East and Africa is rising in line with China’s Belt and Road ambitions in the region. In the last few years, China has agreed bilateral currency swaps with Nigeria, Egypt, the UAE and South Africa, among others, and central banks are looking to include the renminbi as a reserve currency. These measures will bring down the cost of doing business with China and help diversify foreign currency reserves for countries that rely heavily on dollars.
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Standard Chartered is a global bank that prides itself on its regional expertise in the Middle East and Africa. Its footprint in Asia, as Carmen Ling, global head of renminbi internationalization and Belt and Road at the bank, points out, gives it a unique viewpoint to support businesses looking for opportunities, finance and advice on cross-border transactions in the region, which continue to grow as the Belt and Road Initiative takes off.
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In December, construction work started on one of the most ambitious BRI-related infrastructure projects in central and eastern Europe. The Anaklia Deep Sea Port will not only give Georgia its first deep water port but also provide a new access route to the Mediterranean and western Europe for the landlocked countries of the Caucasus and central Asia.
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China Merchants Bank has been a leading proponent of BRI since its inception and has been proactive in developing banking solutions to support Chinese enterprises working in markets along its route.
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Issuance of renminbi-denominated bonds by central and eastern European borrowers remained muted last year, with just three panda deals making it to market. Of these, two were launched by Russian aluminium producer Rusal, which in March 2017 became the first international company to make a private placement on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
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In the five years since the inauguration of the BRI project, Sberbank has emerged as one of the main drivers of a new era of collaboration between Russia and China.
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With Chinese banks dominating BRI-related financing in central and eastern Europe, the opportunities for involvement by western European and global players have so far been few and far between. Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank, for whom Daniel Qian is head of structured export finance, China, managed to demonstrate again over the last 12 months that there are openings for lenders with regional and sectoral expertise.
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Chinese banks have been present in central and eastern Europe for 15 years, but – with the exception of ICBC’s purchase of Turkey’s Tekstilbank in 2014 – outright acquisitions of local lenders have been rare. This makes Citic Bank’s takeover of Kazakhstan’s Altyn Bank, which was completed in May, all the more important.
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As the Belt and Road Initiative has gathered pace, it has attracted increasing interest from local, regional and global banks in central and eastern Europe.
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HSBC Global Research has more than 350 analysts around the world, focusing on global emerging markets and Asia, and in recent years examining key BRI investment themes along the Silk Road.
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Standard Chartered Bank’s deep roots in Asia, and its presence in the majority of the BRI markets make it a natural winner of the award for Best Overall International Bank for BRI. It has been working with both its Chinese and global corporate clients, as well as its Chinese banking partners (among them the big four) and the policy banks, in funding many of the projects along the old Silk Road.
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For years, China had ambitions to develop the marshy swamps facing Georgia’s Black Sea coast, and under former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, plans were drawn up to turn a large patch of marshland along the coast into a Chinese-designed metropolis with towering glass buildings.
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China International Capital Corp is the strongest Chinese investment mergers and acquisition adviser for Chinese state-owned companies, according to research firm Dealogic. In the 12 months between June 2017 and May 2018, the Beijing-based investment bank advised on 58 deals with a total value of $80.6 billion, the highest number of deals and the largest deal value among Chinese investment banks.
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There is no question that Bank of China International deserves to be named best Chinese Bank for the Belt and Road Initiative. BOC's parent, Bank of China, was the first bank to issue BRI bonds, back in 2015, which it uses to help finance infrastructure projects along the old Silk Road.
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When president Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s ‘pivot to the east’ after the Ukraine crisis in 2014, it was met with scepticism by many in the west.
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In 2005, nine Shanghai-based state-owned enterprises set up a project company to develop a large-scale residential and commercial complex in St Petersburg. Since then, Shanghai Overseas United Investment Holdings (SOUI) has invested more than $1.3 billion in the Baltic Pearl development, making it the largest non-energy investment by Chinese companies in Russia.
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The internationalization of the renminbi is a key component of China’s drive to enhance trade connections across the Belt and Road countries. Among international banks, HSBC has positioned itself as the market leader in this field, offering unrivalled renminbi settlement capabilities and trading.
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In Kazakhstan, one of the key Belt and Road countries, Tsesnabank is already emerging as a leading partner for foreign and domestic companies engaged in cross-border business with China.
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As the go-to house for capital markets and transaction banking in central and eastern Europe, and a market leader in Asia, Citi is ideally placed to serve companies investing along the New Silk Road. The US bank – which boasts an on-the-ground presence in the majority of the Belt and Road countries – is gearing up to take full advantage of its unique position.
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State-owned ICBC and Bank of China have led the Chinese charge into central and eastern Europe. Both have already put large amounts of balance sheet to work in projects across the region, as well as laying the groundwork for a physical network along the New Silk Road.
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With a strong track record of engagement in Asia, as well as coverage of key markets across CEE from Central Asia to the Balkans, VTB is ideally placed to take advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative.
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HSBC was a Belt and Road bank before BRI became a buzzword. Although other global banks have made admirable efforts to refocus their business amid the rise of China’s Belt and Road policy, HSBC needed no such programme.
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There are few projects that capture the scale and ambition of the Belt and Road more than the 6,617-kilometre-long rail track being built to link Kunming, in China’s Yunnan province, with Singapore. The railway crosses eight countries, connecting 1.65 billion people in the process. It also demonstrates the long time horizon needed to understand the ties along the Silk Road.
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Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has become a big player thanks to its focus on domestic growth. It is the country’s largest financial institution, with Rmb24.9 trillion ($3.78 trillion) of assets at the end of March, according to EY. But as the bank sees its domestic client base moving offshore, it is making efforts to move alongside them.
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Judged on purely local terms, Bank of China falls behind some of its domestic rivals: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank both bring in far more in terms of net interest income, while Agricultural Bank of China’s branch network – 23,682 at the end of 2016 – is more than twice the size of Bank of China’s. But look abroad and you see a vastly different story.
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Through the internationalization of the renminbi, capital markets activity, mergers and acquisitions and the funding of some remarkable projects, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has taken root in financial markets. These are the banks leading the way
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Laos is small, landlocked and one of the poorest countries in southeast Asia. But a colossal infrastructure project, which will connect China to Singapore through Vientiane, the country’s sleepy capital, could have a dramatic impact.
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In southeast Asia, where economic growth varies widely from country to country, infrastructure development is especially uneven. The need for roads, railways and sustainable energy to support growth and investment is undeniable, with current services in some countries crumbling under the pressure.
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Thailand is still considered one of southeast Asia’s longer-term success stories, despite a slowdown in economic growth and concerns over political stability in recent years.
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With over 150 years of experience in southeast Asia, more than 400 branches and 25,000 employees in the region and a strong presence in all of the Asean countries, Standard Chartered, whose corporate and investment bank is run by Simon Cooper, is Asiamoney’s pick for best international bank for Belt and Road in southeast Asia.
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With over 150 years of experience in southeast Asia, more than 400 branches and 25,000 employees in the region and a strong presence in all of the Asean countries, Standard Chartered, whose corporate and investment bank is run by Simon Cooper, is Asiamoney’s pick for best international bank for Belt and Road in southeast Asia.
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ICBC’s collaboration with banks and institutions in southeast Asia makes it the standout as Asiamoney’s best Chinese bank in southeast Asia for this year’s New Silk Road Finance Awards.
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Singapore-based southeast Asian heavyweight, DBS, easily makes the grade for best regional bank in Asiamoney’s inaugural New Silk Road Finance Awards.
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Habib Bank (HBL) was quick to see the potential in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It was mandated as an account bank on a host of early BRI projects, helping to finance and develop the deep-water port at Gwadar, as well as the $1.3 billion, two-stage development of the Karakoram Highway between China and Pakistan, and a clutch of highways, power plants, hydropower facilities and wind farms.
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The speed with which China’s Belt and Road Initiative has redrawn the trade map, not just in Asia but globally, is astonishing. Any infrastructure project rolled out in a nominated belt-and-road country can now be considered a BRI project. When it comes to infrastructure finance in south Asia, it’s hard to beat HSBC.
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This award recognises the financial institution that has done most to bring BRI-related deals to the capital markets. There’s only one viable winner: Pakistan’s MCB Bank.
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Sri Lanka, with its strong manufacturing and ports sectors, is an important way station on the Maritime Silk Road, boasting strong and long-standing trade links with both China and the west.
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One could say that Standard Chartered was working on the Belt and Road Initiative long before it was born, having set up China desks, staffed by experienced Chinese-speaking bankers, in south Asia, southeast Asia, and the Middle East since the early 2000s.
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The Belt and Road Initiative is a political project as much as it is an economic or a financial one – but it has also become China’s big globalization play, a concerted attempt to redraw the rules of global trade in its own image and to its own benefit. There were many worthy candidates for this award, including China Development Bank and Bank of China.
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MCB Bank, led by chief executive Imran Maqbool, is a worthy winner of best regional bank in south Asia for BRI. It is Pakistan’s third-largest financial institution by market capitalization and the fourth-largest by deposits. It has a roster of China-based corporate clients that spans energy, renewables and infrastructure, including Shandong Hi-Speed, Sinohydro, CSun Solar and Hangzhou Qiantang River Electric.
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Standing out as Asiamoney’s best Belt and Road project in the Middle East and Africa is the new standard gauge railway line between Nairobi and Mombasa. The railway line opened in June this year and is financed by China Exim Bank and the Kenyan government. It was built by China Road and Bridge Corporation and the Chinese state-owned enterprise will operate the railway for the first five years.
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The internationalization of the renminbi goes hand in hand with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. As Chinese investment grows globally, so will the use of its currency. Indeed, some analysts expect full convertibility of the currency to come in the next few years.
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China is keen to explore Belt and Road Initiative opportunities and projects in the Middle East and Africa and is becoming more active in the region.
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Egypt and the Suez Canal provide a crucial section in China’s Maritime Silk Road, connecting Asia with Europe and providing China with easier access to trade in the region.
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Most of China’s state-owned banks and infrastructure developers have interests in the Middle East and Africa, reflecting the country’s far-reaching investment in the region, whether in Kenya’s nascent mining industry, Ethiopia’s light rail transportation system in Addis Ababa, or through importing Qatari petrochemical products.
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In Africa, Standard Bank’s connectivity and expertise is second to none. Over the years, the bank has worked on a number of landmark deals that have transformed and modernized the region’s capital markets and economies, and it continues to bring in new investors who might otherwise find it daunting to navigate the continent’s disparate markets.