Shanghai-based Bank of Communications has received approval from the banking regulatory authority to let foreign investors take at most 15 percent of its shares.
Bank officers said, foreign investment may help improve the bank's equity layout, increase its capital and enhance its internationalization.
Besides bringing about new ways of thinking and management, utilization of foreign funds may trigger innovation for the bank's financial products and technologies.
Regrouped in 1987, the bank is a joint stock corporation controlled by the state. By the end of 2000, the state held 53.08 percent of its equity shares, and Chinese institutional investors, 46.92 percent.
The bank recorded a profit of 2.6 billion yuan in the first half of the year, an increase of 50 percent compared with the same period last year.
(Xinhua 08/09/2001)
