On 14 January 2016, China Construction Bank Zurich Branch (CCBZB) celebrated its opening and the initiation of RMB clearing hub in Zurich. CCB Vice President Xiusheng Pang, former Chinese ambassador in Switzerland Jinghu Xu, president of Swiss National Bank Thomas Jordan, director of Department for Economic Affairs of Canton Zurich Carmen Walker Späh, mayor of city Zurich Corine Mauch, and more than 200 guests from different industries in Switzerland participated in the opening ceremony.

As the first Chinese bank in Switzerland, establishing a branch in Zurich is a key step for China Construction Bank (CCB) to carry out its global transformation and to extend its European network. Better branch network and service capability of CCB in Europe will enable the provision of high-quality and efficient financial services to Chinese companies in Switzerland and Swiss companies locally.

In the initial stage, CCBZB will focus on corporate clients, and primarily support medium and large Chinese enterprises overseas and high-quality Swiss companies with close trade and investment relationships to China. Our products and services include settlement, clearing, business loans, trade finance, treasury business, RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (RQFII) and other banking products. At appropriate stage later, asset management and private banking services will also be offered.

As RMB clearing bank in Switzerland, CCBZB will carefully fulfill its duties, offer efficient and practical RMB clearing services and RMB liquidity support, advance an active and organized offshore market for RMB trading, build up a RMB business center in Switzerland, with the aim to make a positive contribution to the economic and financial cooperation between China and Switzerland.

Situated in Switzerland, CCBZB will benefit from the well-known brand of the CCB Group, its broad customer base, its network of institutions, and will ride the tailwind of increasing trade and investment relations between China and Switzerland to become a competent financial institution with excellent reputation, which is able to offer both Chinese and Swiss companies safe, practical, high-quality and efficient financial services.

China Construction Bank (CCB) is one of the leading global commercial banks established in 1954 and it was listed at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock Exchanges in 2005 and 2007 respectively. In November 2015, China Construction Bank was designated a sys¬temically important global bank (G-SIFI) by the Financial Stability Board.

As of the third quarter of 2015, CCB has 15 000 branches in mainland China; the bank’s assets exceed RMB 18 trillion. CCB’s global branch network covers 25 countries and the bank has 130 branches and subsid¬iaries overseas. CCB has established eight branches in Europe’s most important finan¬cial and commercial centers, including Am¬sterdam, Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, Lux¬embourg, Milan, Paris, Zürich and it operates three wholly-owned subsidiaries in Europe - CCB (London) ,CCB (Europe) in Luxembourg and CCB (Russia)in Moscow.

CCB pursues a long-term pro-active inter¬national growth strategy, steadily expanding overseas business and networks, contin¬uously broadening its service and advisory channels and improving global client service capabilities. The establishment of the Zurich Branch is an important step in CCB’s strat¬egy to build a global presence, and it is de¬signed to promote the RMB internationaliza-tion process, responding to the increasing demand for the respective financial services from Chinese and Swiss clients.