By cooperation with International Finance Cooperation and Canadian Scotia Bank, western region's first joint venture bank will be set up in Xi'an in early September.

Negotiation on the cooperation has entered into its final phase, press conference will be held later.

Xi'an City Commercial Bank is the only share-holding bank in Xi'an, it is also the largest bank in China's western region. By far, its registered capital reaches 450 million yuan, with total assets up to 16 billion yuan.

According to the bank, it began to mull cooperation with foreign partners in June 2000.

It ever had talks with banks in Hong Kong, Canada, after ten rounds of negotiations, International Finance Cooperation and Canadian Scotia Bank expressed intention for cooperation.

Sources said that at the very beginning of the negotiation, International Finance Cooperation and Scotia Bank ever set out a series of tough requirements in which they asked the bank to expand shares to 1 billion yuan within a year's time, and to re-audit the bank's business performance and reappraise the assets.

Yin Jianhong, president of the bank said that foreign share will reach 24.9 percent, the bank's current largest shareholder, Xi'an municipal government takes up 19.4 percent of the share.

The cooperation includes, International Finance Corporation and Scotia Bank will get one chair in the board of directors respectively, and one of the vice president will go to one of the two foreigners said Yin. In the meanwhile, the two will offer assistance to the Xi'an City Commercial Bank in technology, management, staff training and risk control.

By the end of September, three city commercial banks will become International Finance Corporation's partners if no mishap takes place.

In September 1999, International Finance Corporation succeeded in cooperation with Shanghai Bank with an investment of US$22 million, holding 5 percent of the share.

Two years later, it invested US$27 million in Nanjing City Commercial Bank taking up 15 percent of its share.

Sources said that because the shareholders of city-level commercial banks are mainly small and private enterprises, their customers are common citizens, the bank wants to expand its influence in local enterprises.

(People's Daily August 31, 2002)