ICBC ready to fund railway project in UAE

Abu Dhabi: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) said yesterday that it is ready to provide financing, export credit and advisory services for a railway project in the UAE as the two nations get set for a quantum leap into an economic partnership that transcends trade.

Companies from the two nations have expressed keen interest in cross-border investments that use the UAE as the gateway to the Middle East for Chin-ese firms and financial institutions.

ICBC, the world's largest bank by market capitalisation, will join China's Ministry of Railways to provide "railroads plus finance", Yi Huiman, the bank's executive vice president, said yesterday at the Abu Dhabi and China Economic Forum in Shanghai.

ICBC has provided fin-ancing for Chinese companies such as high-tech firm Huawei Technologies and oil refiner PetroChina to expand business in the Gulf, Yi said.

Union Railway, an Abu Dhabi initiative, is being expanded to cover all seven emirates, Chief Executive Richard Bowker said last month. He confirmed yesterday that Union Railway is in talks with the Chinese but no deals have officially been signed.

Concurrently, the Abu Dhabi Government's investment arm Invest AD said it would launch a private equity fund along with its Hong Kong partner to invest in the Middle East. It will close subscriptions for a separate Middle East stock fund in June, said Mohammad Saleh Al Hashemi, executive director of investment management.

Dr Armen V. Papazian, a financial economist and Islamic finance expert, told Gulf News: "Exploring the many possible avenues of cooperation with China and other economies in the Far East should be a strategic priority, and recent developments reveal that closer and stronger engagement is in process on both ends.

"The UAE must seek to diversify its economic and financial relationships, expand its trade and investment horizons, and embrace the potential and actual benefits of being in the Middle East," he said.

The chief executive of HSBC in China has said the financial crisis has only made the country stronger, with its exporters becoming leaner and more efficient. "As demand comes back, people are going to find that China has a better and more efficient export machine," said Richard Yorke.

Khalifa Port:  Joint venture

Abu Dhabi Ports Company and DP World have teamed up to create a joint venture firm to operate Khalifa Port at Taweelah.

"There will be a new company called Emirates Ports Company, a new ownership between Abu Dhabi and Dubai," Tawfeeq Al Mubarak, acting chief executive officer of ADPC, said yesterday.

— With inputs from Bloomberg