HBL opens rep office in Beijing
From Javed Akhtar of APP

BEIJING—Habib Bank Limited has opened a representative office in Beijing to facilitate the Chinese entrepreneurs to undertake joint ventures in Pakistan. The branch office will help them provide banking facilities including credit, said Mohammad Aslam, who has taken over as the Bank’s Chief Representative in China.
The rep office is located in the posh locality of the city (Wangfujing street). “The banking service has been made available to the Chinese businessmen in accordance with the government’s policy to step up trade and investment activities between the two friendly countries,” said Aslam while talking to APP here Thursday.It will also help promote cooperation between the banking sectors of the two countries, he added. A rep office of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) is already working in China. The China Development Bank (CDB) and NBP have recently agreed to closely co-operate for the benefit of the two countries.
The prospects of mutual cooperation in the field of project financing and other related areas with the Pakistani banks are quite good, said an official of the CDB. According to Liu Mingkang, the chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, China may ease restrictions on ownership of its domestic lenders by foreign banks by the end of next year as it further liberalizes the industry. China will let foreign lenders conduct local currency business with its 1.3 billion citizens at the end of 2006, allowing foreign banks access to its $1.65 trillion in household deposits held in local currency. The Chinese government is working on a draft document regarding its World Trade Organization commitments to open the banking system, including easing geographical restrictions, Liu said.